Thanks, Wayne.

I remember it as "the winter of '74," but it was the winter that ended in 74, not began! I wonder if that is a consistent convention, naming the winter after its second year. I suppose it should be, as it just keeps getting more wintry after the turn of the year.

Dennis


On Nov 21, 2011, at 12:00 PM, tweeters-request at mailman1.u.washington.edu wrote:

> Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:13:48 -0800
> From: "Wayne Weber" <contopus at telus.net>
> Subject: RE: [Tweeters] Snowy Owl stories
> To: "TWEETERS" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID: <03fa01cca814$bbc0d190$334274b0$ at net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Dennis,
>
> I believe your recollection is off just slightly. The biggest recent flight
> year was 1973-4 (the flight of the century?), not 1974-5. The Ladner
> Christmas Bird Count in 1973 tallied 107 Snowy Owls, which I believe still
> stands as the all-time North American high count on a CBC. The following
> year (1974) we counted only 17 Snowy Owls, which would qualify as an "echo
> flight"-- still more owls than are seen in most "flight years".
>
> When I heard one day in November 1973 that one observer had counted 33 Snowy
> Owls just on the south jetty at Iona Island, I knew that an event of
> historic proportions was underway!
>
> Wayne C. Weber
> Delta, BC
> contopus at telus.net


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20111121/f3497dba/attachment.htm