Image courtesy of New York Times.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, wait. It’s definitely a bird. A lot of birds, to be precise.

Bird-watchers across the country are recording an unusually high number of snowy owl sightings. There appears to be both an increase in population as well as an increase in the territory the birds have been seen in.

While they are normally rare in Kansas and Missouri, they have been sighted as far south as Hawaii. The birds, which live in the Arctic for most of the year are traveling south in an infrequent irruption.  That’s irruption, not eruption. The owls, colored blinding white with yellow eyes, are the same species as Hedwig, the fictional companion of Harry Potter.

Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute, was not clear on what, exactly, caused the rise in numbers.

“We do know they had a really good breeding year, and there was plenty of food last year. Instead of no chicks, or one or two, a single nest will produce five, six, seven or more fledglings in a good breeding year.”

We’re not sure where all the owls are coming from, but would like to helpfully reiterate that we are still waiting on our Hogwarts letters.