I received this message from a fellow Feederwatcher in Saskatoon SK in
reply to my posting yesterday relating to Snowy Owls.
John Nelson
Good Thunder MN
Begin forwarded message:
Hi John,
A friend who is a Field Biologist was recently on a work-related
trip from Saskatoon to the Swift Current area, a distance of about
150 miles. In an e-mail he said that where, in a normal year, he'd
see at least a dozen or more Snowy owls, his total for that return
trip at this time of year, was 2.
Another friend from Saskatoon, who is a 'Train Driver', (his words),
for the Canadian National Railway on the Edmonton route, this year
reports seeing one or two Snowies on his route when he would
regularly see a dozen or so on his 500 mile return run.
With those two reports in mind, it's going to be interesting to see
what the upcoming results will be once the tally for the Christmas
Bird Counts are in the book...
re the BOSS situation: If I'm reading the PFW maps correctly, it
seems like the numbers of FeederWatchers is significantly down
across both the States and Canada. That, too, will have an impact on
the 2011 BOSS crop. However, in talking to a local farmer who did
grow some BOSS this past season, he said that he had a bumper crop
of excellent quality. O f course, he had no problem selling it and
wished he'd planted more than 80 acres. This far north, however,
BOSS is always an 'iffy' crop. We normally get a killing frost about
the last quarter of September, keeping in mind that the last of our
crops is normally planted in early June.
Moe Mareschal
Birch Hills, SK
On the farm in the Aspen Woodland zone between the Great Plains and
the Boreal Forest.
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