Folks who are thinking over the current snowy owl incursion will enjoy
reading Gross's engrossing summary in the Auk from three-quarters of a
century ago, at
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v064n04/p0584-p0601.pdf
. In the 1945-46 event, for example, 13,502 owls were reported, and
4,443 of them shot. Extended readable and pretty well-authenticated
written accounts are missing in the Auk or other professional
ornithological venues nowadays, and seem relegated to the popular press.
  But it would be refreshing to read an account in something other than
a brief gee-whiz newspaper story or internet gossip, something with more
news like Gross's reports of owls on ships at sea, odd observations on
owls' prey, the depredations of gunners, etc. If you wore a raccoon hat,
you ran the risk of an owl attack. Too bad we so often have to seek out
antique sources to read this sort of thing. Today it's just "I saw an
owl at xxxxx location."
        Gross cites a couple of Ohio accounts, both from Columbus-area experts,
in the Literature Cited section of the article cited above; Hicks's
article (for 1930-31) is easy to access (search "sora"), but Thomas's
(for 1926-27) remains buried in a more obscure publication. But they too
both lack much of the allure of a good story, and are mostly just
reported numbers.
        In bygone years, researchers seemingly did a better job overall
recording remarkable bird-related events. Modern reporting methodologies
like eBird may cast a wider net but have more limited data per sighting,
many duplications, and lack comparability with these earlier recordings,
not to mention a dearth of interesting anecdotes. Today, we may have
better ways to tell if the reasons for incursions might involve too many
or too few lemmings, but a lot of the news comes from guys in short
sleeves who mostly sit in front of computer screens.
        As our knowledge becomes more bureaucratic and impersonal, some factors
are less public and hard to compare.  Next time we go out to tick (or
even study!) a snowy owl, let's at least take along someone, especially
someone without a checklist, to share it with.
Bill Whan
Columbus


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