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There have been a large number of Snowy Owls in the North East US this year. A couple members of my camera club told me that there are one or more in the vicinity of Biddeford Pool, Maine. Today it was nice and sunny so we took a trip down there and found this owl on the top of a power pole. I only have a puny 135 mm lens so this image is enlarged significantly.

Snowy owls — large, fluffy, white birds typically found in the Arctic and rarely seen south of the Great Lakes — have swooped down upon the eastern United States in greater numbers than at any time in at least 50 years, one bird expert says. The owls have been spotted as far south as Bermuda, the Carolinas and Missouri, according to news reports. Play Video Steal Super Powers From BIRDS! You know that sixth sense birds have telling them to fly south in the winter? Now a few people have figured out how to obtain this sixth sense for themselves. iStockphoto/Chrisds

This migration of snowy owls southward is called an irruption, and this is the "largest of its kind in recent memory," said Kevin McGowan, a bird expert at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University. PHOTOS: Birds Take Flight for Fall Migration

Snowy owls — the same species as Hedwig, Harry Potter's fictional letter-carrying bird — are magnificent to behold, standing 3 feet (1 meter) tall and sporting a 5-foot (1.5 m) wingspan. "Snowy owls are an Arctic bird adapted to live at the top of the world, and they usually spend the winter up there," as well as the summer, McGowan told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet. (Whooo's in There? Amazing Images of Owls)

But why are these birds showing up in such large numbers in the Midwest and eastern United States? Typically, such winter migrations take place when the owls' food — mainly rodents, such as lemming — are unavailable. Although nobody knows yet why there are so many snowy owls showing up this year, it could be due to a crash in these lemming populations, or because the rodents are more difficult to hunt when there is more snow on the ground, McGowan said. In addition, more snowy owls may have been born this year compared to in other years, leading to more competition for finite food resources, he said. But scientists likely won't know for a while what factor or factors are behind the large irruption this year.