Thanks, Amy.


I enjoyed that reading as well.


It is part intuition and part wish that more Snowy Owls will be seen this year. An irruption would be far less likely. The appearance of the Bohemians and Northern Hawk owl may indicate higher probabilities of this happening.
The Snowy is one of my favorite species.


Thanks,
Dan Reiff
----- Original Message -----
From: " amy schillinger " < schillingera at hotmail .com>
To: notcalm at comcast.net, "tweet ters " <tweeters at u. washington . edu >
Sent: Thursday, December 2, 2010 8:51:16 PM
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] What's next for Winter species?

Dan, Tweeters, et al ,

I read an interesting article in the latest Audubon magazine about what lives within, beneath, and just atop the winter snow. In the article the author talks with an ecologist about how populations of bacteria, plants, and even animals such as voles and mice can be affected by how, when, and how much snow falls during different temperatures. This apparently means that if snows fall too early or too late, it affects food sources these species depend on. ".....Think freezer burn: Leave a piece of fruit in a plastic bag in the freezer too long and the ice crystals form inside the bag. Water that was in the fruit has sublimated, then condensed on the bag, forming ice. The same thing happens in bare soil, only there's no bag to trap the water vapor, which dissipates into the air. The ground grows dry. As a result, though there's plenty of food for microbes, without water their growth is retarded." (Jeff Hull, Audubon magazine) I expect that without the water crystals beneath the snow, the grasses growth is adversly affected. Also, if there are large temperature swings while there is snow on the ground, some species can drown or die of hypothermia.What I gathered from the article is that this affects the populations of voles and mice because grasses that grow within and under the snowpack release a chemical that signals the animals to breed. Without it, I assume they don't and this could be a reason why their populations explode, or worse, crash. I found this article fascinating and feel like it gives me a little bit more to go on as to why lemming, vole, and mice populations suffer from large swings in size. Perhaps these population swings coincide with irruption years for Snowy Owls. At a minimum, it seems that it could at least contribute to it.




Amy Schillinger
Renton , WA
schillingera at hotmail .com


Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 00:25:54 +0000
From: notcalm at comcast.net
To: Tweeters at u. washington . edu
CC:
Subject: [Tweeters] What's next for Winter species?


I believe we will see Snowy Owls, in greater numbers this year. Will it be the next great species to be seen? Maybe a little early. Will we have an irruption year? Don't know. And in the end we will only be able to speculate why. And will have fun doing so.


Dan Reiff
_______________________________________________ Tweeters mailing list Tweeters at u. washington . edu http ://mailman2.u. washington . edu /mailman/ listinfo /tweeters