Many thanks to everyone who sent in questions after our last article on dealing with rodents in the fall, and while the questions span a large range of topics, I wanted to take a stab at addressing a few of them here as they shared a common theme of “what should we expect this winter?”

It is fun to look around the landscape, both as we’ve seen it in recent years and as it is currently, to try to predict the future. Naturalists may not know who will win the Super Bowl (I wouldn’t bet on the Patriots this year…) but we can take a good guess at the “winners and losers” each season in nature.

We are still a month away from the earliest expected sighting of a snowy owl, but many people are asking about them already. A few snowy 0wls do make it to Maine every winter, but with the two large flights we’ve experienced over the past decade, Mainers have been spoiled lately. These winter invasions, known as irruptions, occur when snowy owls have a very successful nesting season, which happens when lemmings and voles in the Arctic are abundant. When winter arrives and there are now many young birds competing for resources with the adults, those young birds will travel south to areas with more food and less competition, like Maine.

Unfortunately, the few reports I’ve heard from owl researchers in the Arctic make it sound like there was little to no nesting of snowy owls this year. Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute, who has studied snowy owls for over 30 years, shared from Alaska that 2024 was a low lemming year and there were no nests in their study area. That said, the Arctic is a huge space and perhaps owls farther east – those that would be more likely to come to Maine in the winter – experienced a different summer. Time will tell.

Speaking of rodent abundance, I can tell based on the number of responses to our rodent-prevention article that you all are seeing plenty this fall. After last year’s very wet spring and summer, we saw trees overproduce seeds, producing a bumper crop known as a “mast year.” I can’t recall ever seeing white pines produce so many cones, but maybe that was before I was a homeowner and had to deal with picking them all up.

One reader asked specifically about rodents finding their way into their car, a bit trickier problem to deal with than a home invasion. Many of the same preventive strategies apply, like sealing up any cracks and crevasses if you park your car in a garage. It isn’t likely that mice or chipmunks are specifically seeking out a car inside the garage, but instead are primarily attracted to food or material they could use to build a nest (like cardboard or newspaper) and then find the ideal place to build the nest (as in, your car). Parking outside and getting pests is unlucky, but increase your odds of avoidance by making sure you park away from trash bins and keep the inside of your vehicle free from tasty items that would attract rodents.

While cone crops are down from last year, it seems like any and every fruit-bearing bush is producing as many berries as it can right now. Mountain ash and winterberry are adding beautiful red berries to the Maine landscape and will be great food for frugivores this winter. Unfortunately for people hoping to see pine grosbeaks or bohemian waxwings, which are irruptive like the snowy owls I mentioned earlier, there is abundant fruit across eastern Canada as well, so those species are unlikely to need to wander south. If they do, it likely wouldn’t be until late winter when food in their usual range becomes scarce.

Thinking further out, one could expect to hear more coyotes and foxes this winter if the boom in rodents continues. Or maybe some of our local owls – like barred and northern saw-whet owls – will also benefit, but that may depend on the depth and condition of snow we get this winter. Stay tuned and let us know what you see this fall.

Have you got a nature or wildlife question of your own? It doesn’t have to be about birds! Email questions to ask@maineaudubon.org and visit maineaudubon.org to learn more about birding, native plants, and programs and events focusing on Maine wildlife and habitat. Doug and other naturalists lead-free bird walks on Thursday mornings, 7 to 9 am, at Maine Audubon’s Gilsland Farm Audubon Sanctuary in Falmouth.