Must be too cold up north for these birds to handle. Must be a sign of another ice age approaching.
Even though it's been remakably mild in these parts (VA) this winter it's been very, very cold in Northern Canada and Alaska. It's also been colder than usual and very snowy all over Europe. We've lucked out becaus the Artic oscillation and the ATantic oscillation are working to keep the jet stream to our north while farther east it's dipping quite low.
My wife and I wwwere at the Back Bay wildlife3 refuge a couple of weeks ago and there was a huge, huge flock of Artic swans on back bay...they come evry year but this was the biggest gathering I'd seen in years, and a woman who was taking pictures, said she was a biologist but what do I know, said that the migrations were bigger because of the incredible cold up north.
Apparently they had a record crop of lemming and hence a record brood season for the owls. Now the young owls are moving south because of competition. I think it’d be awesome of they populated the lower 48.