Snowy owl numbers on Nunavut island highest in years

Birdwatchers in Nunavut and beyond could soon be seeing more of an elusive and iconic Arctic animal, as researchers have found a record number of snowy owl nests on an island in the High Arctic. 

Snowy owls are one of the largest owl species in North America, with a wingspan of nearly a metre and a half. The birds migrate to southern Canada in winter, and some of the birds are being spotted as far south as Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

"It creates all that buzz on the web and media with people seeing snowy owls in our neighbourhoods," says Jean-François Therrien, a senior research biologist at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. "So it's pretty exciting stuff for us down here."

Therrien has been studying bird populations in the Arctic since 2007 and says this year's population boost is the biggest he has ever seen. 

"What we recorded is that the number of nests of snowy owls that we found in the study area was above anything that we have seen in the past 25 years or so."

Researchers found 116 nests on Bylot Island, off the northern tip of Baffin Island, in three weeks over the summer, well beyond the previous record of 33 nests in 2010.

But Therrien says this doesn't mean the population of snowy owls has gone up worldwide, since the birds are nomadic and don't return to the same nesting areas like some other migratory birds. 

It's possible that the owls may be flocking to Therrien's study area because there has been an outbreak of lemmings.

"Every year there's an outbreak somewhere in the Arctic and then the owls are looking for a spot where lemmings are in high density and this is what they do every year," he said.

Northern birders may want to take advantage of the situation while it lasts. Therrien says it's possible that the snowy owls will "over-browse" the lemming population, causing the bird population to shrink back to lower levels in the coming years.