MIAMI VALLEY — The Miami Valley is below average snowfall this winter, but the region is seeing an above average snowy owl population, according to Rebecca Jaramillio, the director of the Glen Helen Raptor Center.
“They’re so cool to watch,” Jaramillio said.
She has heard of at least five sightings between the Cincinnati and Columbus regions.
Roger Garber snapped pictures of one last month in Springfield. His wife, Marcia Garber, spotted one in Xenia last week.
>> PHOTOS: Snowy owl spotted in Springfield
“This is what we call an irruption year,” Jaramillio said.
She explained, this happens every four to five years, and has to do with the snowy owls’ food population in their home, the arctic circle.
“A lot of people used to think they were coming here because they were starving, there wasn’t enough food, and so they were looking for more food. But it’s actually sort of the opposite,” Jaramillo said.
Instead, she said lemmings, the rodents the owls typically feed on, had a good year, leaving more food for the owls.
“Ordinarily, maybe one chick per nest would survive, but because there’s so much food almost all of the chicks survive,” Jaramillio said.
That means, to avoid overcrowding, the owls head south.
There are no lemmings in the Miami Valley, so they feed on things like rats and mice.
Though they can adjust to live in a warmer climate than the arctic temperatures they are used to, Jaramillio said they have other threats here.
“Really the biggest dangers are things that they’re not accustomed to seeing in the arctic, so your cars, your electrical lines, people, so more of the manmade dangers, Jaramillio said.
She explained, snowy owls favor wide open spaces, similar to what they would find in the arctic. In their homeland, they also do not encounter as many people as they do in the Miami Valley.
“They really don’t have that kind of innate fear of humans, and so people can get a lot closer to them than a lot of your other wildlife,” Jaramillio said.
However, she cautioned against doing so, as this can be dangerous for the birds.
Jaramillio said the snowy owls will stick around until sometime around February.