Route 153

No Snowy March 30, 2019

I’m worried that I won’t see a snowy owl this year—that 2019 is the year that my snowy luck runs out.

I’ve had this worry before. In 2017, I listed one just under the wire: Christmas Eve.

Before 2014, I’d never even seen a snowy owl in the wild, but then there was an irruption, and suddenly they were around and findable. I saw my first one ever in February 2014. I counted 2015’s in January. (The only list I keep is my first sighting of a species in a year; I’ve seen more snowy owls than I’ve listed, but only a few.)

It’s not that by 2016 I was expecting to see one, but when I at last found one in November, I had to admit that I was getting used to being able to find them.

When November 2017 passed without a sighting, I was pretty sure my luck had run out, but December 24 was our day. We saw another four weeks later, in 2018.

And here it is the end of March. I didn’t see any of the owls that came through at the end of last year, and I haven’t seen one to count yet this year, so now, if I get one, it will be at the end of the year, if it happens at all.

After a five-year listing run, this could be the year I don’t see a snowy owl.

In other news, the red-winged blackbirds are back.