Tag Archives: Norman Smith

A second very thoughtful and super helpful article about safely viewing Snowy Owls in my inbox today, this from Mass Audubon –

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Snowy Owls Are Back in Massachusetts—Here’s What You Need to Know

Mass Audubon December 3, 2024

Every fall, usually in November, enchanted visitors make their way from the Arctic tundra to the (relatively) warmer lands in Massachusetts. With white feathers speckled grey and piercing yellow eyes, the return of Snowy Owls brings joy to birders, photographers, and Harry Potter fans alike. These majestic birds spend the winter in open spaces such as large salt marshes, agricultural fields, and even airports, before heading back to their northern breeding grounds around April.

While their arrival causes excitement among many, there are a few important things to keep in mind before searching them out.

Why Am I Hearing More About Snowy Owls Now?

Snowy Owls (or “snowies”) travel south every winter to hunt and feed in warmer weather, but the number that appear each season varies from year to year. An irruptive species, they respond to changes in the conditions of their home territory by moving elsewhere in search of food. Some of the factors that trigger irruptions include variations in their Arctic food supply, severe snow and ice cover in their usual wintering areas, or a superabundance of owls resulting from an exceptional nesting season.

Snowy Owl swooping on beach dune. Photo by Marilyn Blake

Snowy Owls Face Challenges

Most of the owls found in Massachusetts during the winter are young, inexperienced, and face many challenges. They must master hunting prey and evading predators; avoid being hit by vehicles or getting electrocuted; fend off disease and rodenticide poison; and deal with disruptions by people while roosting and hunting. While some challenges are beyond our control, individual actions can help minimize human disturbances.

Don’t Disturb the Snowies While Viewing Them

As a community of bird-lovers and conservationists, we can avoid making survival any more difficult for these spectacular raptors by giving them plenty of space.

Primarily nocturnal, Snowy Owls mostly roost (rest or sleep) during the daytime to conserve energy. Groups of observers can keep Snowy Owls from resting; birds are often forced to fly and relocate repeatedly if multiple photographers or birders approach them. To protect the Snowy Owls, give them the space they need to survive.

Distance is Key: When observing an owl, stay at least 50 yards (150 feet) away. That’s about half of a football field, or five school buses stacked end-to-end. Bring and utilize your binoculars or a zoom camera lens to keep your distance while viewing.
Manage Your Group: When viewing an owl with a group of people, view from one location and never surround or attempt to approach the owl to get a better view or photograph.
Watch for Behavioral Clues: If the bird becomes alert, extends its neck upright, and eyes become wide open, you have disturbed it and you should back off immediately.
By following these ethical birding and bird photography best practices, you can help ensure a successful breeding season for future generations.

How Mass Audubon is Helping Snowy Owls

Norman Smith Photo by John Cole

Logan Airport has the largest known concentration of Snowy Owls in the Northeast. The airport owls help by scaring away other birds that might endanger aircraft. Unfortunately, they are also large enough to pose a threat themselves. To protect both birds and jets, Mass Audubon’s Norman Smith has been safely capturing and relocating Snowy Owls since 1981. These re-releases allow our team to learn more about the birds’ health, flight patterns, and more. Learn more about the Snowy Owl Project

Explore Opportunities to View Snowy Owls Respectfully

Mass Audubon offers bird walks and Snowy Owl-focused programs, where our expert naturalists will lead the way in observing owls without disrupting their much-needed daytime rest.

Stop at the Blue Hills Trailside Museum in Milton for a guaranteed way to see two Snowy Owls up close without disturbing them. The owls in their exhibit cannot survive in the wild due to injuries and now serves as animal ambassadors.

CHAMPION OF OWLS AWARD TO NORMAN SMITH OF MASSACHUSETTS

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At the March International Festival of Owls, which is held annually in Minnesota, Massachusetts own Norman Smith, along with two other awardees, was presented with the Champion of Owls for his work protecting Snowy Owls. The International Owl Festival is a fundraiser for the International Owl Center.

Champion of Owls Award
Norman Smith, Massachusetts, USA
Snowy Owls have been a part of Norman Smith’s life for over 40 years. They are something he has shared with his own children from a very young age and now his grandchildren.
 
Smith is best known for his work trapping and relocating Snowy Owls from Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts (since birds and airplanes don’t go well together). To date he has relocated more than 850 owls, analyzed more than 5,000 pellets, and was the first researcher to attach a satellite transmitter to a Snowy Owl captured on the wintering grounds and then track it back to the breeding grounds in the arctic. At some airports snowy owls were being shot for the safety of the planes so in 2013 Smith and Jeff Turner, a wildlife biologist for the USDA, wrote and implemented protocols for trapping instead of shooting them that were adopted by the U.S Department of Agriculture at airports across the USA and Canada.
 
His work with owls started more than 50 years ago with banding and rehabilitation. Thirty-five years ago, he discovered that he could foster young owls into wild nests instead of hand rearing them with a higher rate of survival and since then has put over 1,000 orphaned young owls into foster nests. Through banding rehabilitated owls, he found that some one-eyed owls could survive in the wild, with one living 10 years after it was released. To date he has rehabilitated more than 2,000 owls.
 
As natural educator and passionate speaker, Smith has served as a keynote speaker at prominent birding events around the USA. He recently retired as the Director of Mass Audubon’s Blue Hills Trailside Museum and the Norman Smith Environmental Education Center where millions of people were educated during his tenure.
 
Smith is also a collaborator. He was a founding member of the International Snowy Owl Working Group and hosted their first meeting in the USA in 2017. As a result of this group’s work at that meeting, the Snowy Owl was reclassified from Least Concern to Vulnerable. In the winter of 2013-14 he was also one of the co-founders of Project SNOWstorm, a network of researchers tracking Snowy Owls with satellite transmitters. He is a co-author of the authoritative Birds of North America account on Snowy Owls and also helped raise funds to purchase a snowmobile for a Snowy Owl researcher in Russia.
 
The media helped Smith educate even more people by promoting his work. He has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, NOVA, CBS News and World Report, Ranger Rick, National Geographic for Kids, Cornell’s Living Bird, and hundreds of other news articles.
 
His mission is to use the information gathered from his research to stimulate a passion in everyone he meets to help us better understand, appreciate and care for this world in which we live.

NORMAN SMITH, THE MAN WHO SAVES SNOWY OWLS!

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Norman Smith from Mass Audubon has done more to save Snowy Owls and bring awareness to this beautiful and at risk species than any other person nationwide. Since 1981 he has been at the forefront of Snowy Owl conservation and his Project SNOWstorm has become a model for saving and studying Snowy Owls around the country.

Several weeks ago I was up north for my short film about Hedwig and came upon a Snowy Owl in the marsh. With very similar feather patterning around the face, I think she is the same Snowy that was released in the video!