RARE Snowy Owl Returns to Ocracoke – North Carolina

During irruptions, these owls tend to be on the move, staying in a location briefly. So, it was unusual that the owls stayed on Ocracoke until last seen on March 8, 2014. See Ocracoke's Snowy Winter. That winter, Ocracoke became a mecca for birders to see the owl. I sent out a notice on some of the birding internet sites that I would help take people out to see them in my beach-legal Jeep, and 250 people took up my offer. During that period, we missed them only four days, two of them were snow storms and the others had high winds. According to Project SNOWstorm, one of the world's largest collaborative research projects that focuses on Snowy Owls, it is a myth that hunger drives these owls south, and that they are doomed to slowly starve to death in this unfamiliar southern landscape. Both assumptions are generally wrong. It appears it's not hunger that produces these mega-flights, but an absurd abundance of food during the summer breeding season. High populations of lemmings, voles, ptarmigan and other prey lead to large clutches of owl eggs and an overabundance of fledged owls that move south.