I spent this week working in Lake County and found the small mammal abundance, particularly mice and voles to be far higher than I've ever experienced. It seemed like voles and mice were fleeing any step I took on a grass tuft or brush pile. On any given day, I would see dozens of these rodents. There was no shortage of hares either. These are just personal observations and may not be the whole picture if small mammals were actually surveyed.
Does anyone know what this might mean for owls and raptors this winter? If the abundance is as high in Canada as it seems here, could there be little to induce an irruption? Could we still see one caused by high breeding success due to the abundant rodents? (A local bird bander has had higher than average success with Northern Saw-whet Owls this fall....maybe the rodents helped them as well.) If we do have an irruption, might it be an invisible irruption because the birds would be able to fill up at night without hunting during the day? Could the abundance of small mammals entice raptors like Rough-legged Hawks and Sharp-shinned Hawks to winter farther north than they otherwise would? -- Shawn Conrad www.itascacnfbirding.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
