Hochelaga Update

Scott WeidensaulUpdates3 Comments

Just a quick bit of news for everyone who (like me, I must admit) might have been worried about Hochelaga, the adult male who likes to winter near the Montréal airport and who has been largely out of touch the past two weeks. Yesterday evening, March 14, he checked in — and no wonder he wasn’t connecting via cell. He’s … Read More

On the Move (or Not)

Scott WeidensaulUpdates4 Comments

The days are getting longer, and at least one of our tagged owls has started to head north — and that one, Atwood, is a bird whose locations we’d been masking because there was a bit more photographer activity in the area than we were entirely comfortable with. We also heard from an old veteran whom we assumed had remained … Read More

Introducing Atwood

Scott WeidensaulUpdates17 Comments

On Feb. 25, SNOWstorm collaborators Charlotte England and Malcolm Wilson tagged an adult female snowy owl, which they nicknamed Atwood for a nearby small town in southern Ontario. She weighed a healthy 2,170 grams (4.8 pounds) and based on her flight feather molt is at least four years old. We look forward to tracking her movements for years to come. … Read More

An Important New Study on Lemming Cycles

Scott WeidensaulUpdates4 Comments

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of small rodents, especially lemmings, to snowy owls. Although snowies eat a remarkable variety of prey during the winter, from voles, muskrats and rabbits to waterbirds like ducks, gulls and occasionally even birds as large as snow geese and red-throated loons, during the summer breeding season in the Arctic their nesting fortunes are largely … Read More

All Back in Touch

Scott WeidensaulUpdates2 Comments

Just a very quick update to say that all three of our tagged owls are where we’d expect them to be. After going dark for a week, Hochelaga’s transmitter picked up enough solar juice to reconnect regularly starting Feb. 20, and his data show he’s doing what he’s been doing all winter, hanging around the Montréal-Trudeau airport and nearby highways. … Read More

North, Then Not

Scott WeidensaulUpdates5 Comments

As we noted last week, both of our veteran snowy owls, Newton and Hochelaga, have been off the grid for a week or two. In my most recent update, I noted that both had very low battery voltages before they went dark, so that their radio silence probably had to do with low solar recharge that’s not unusual at this … Read More

Introducing Loren

Scott WeidensaulUpdates9 Comments

For the first time in this exceedingly slow winter, we have a newly tagged owl to introduce — Loren, an immature female in Québec. After she showed up at the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, she was trapped Jan. 25 by biologists from Falcon Environmental, which handles wildlife control at the airport — they have been great colleagues of our in years … Read More

Two Owls, Two Personalities

Scott WeidensaulUpdates4 Comments

So far this winter, two of our previously tagged snowy owls have come far enough south to register on the cell network and send data — Newton, an adult male tagged last winter in southern Ontario, and Hochelaga, another male that is at least 10 years old, who came down into southern Québec after remaining in the subarctic last winter. … Read More

Newton Update

Scott WeidensaulUpdates10 Comments

In the 10 days or so since he reappeared on the cell network, Newton has seemed content to remain in the Timiskaming area of eastern Ontario, just 20 km (13 miles) from the Québec border. This is a pocket of open, flat farmland at the north end of Lake Timiskaming, more or less surrounded by boreal forest. He’s been on … Read More