Wells was SNOWstorm’s third Maine owl, captured at Portland Jetport by USDA APHIS, tagged by our colleagues at the Biodiversity Research Institute and released Jan. 25, 2017 at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge near Wells, ME. She was an adult female and weighed just over 2,000g. She was last detected April 21, 2017, heading north through southern Québec, then reappeared in late November 2017, having nested in northern Québec over the summer, and spent the winter in Québec City. Wells migrated north in April 2018 and spent that summer in the central Canadian Arctic, where she does not appear to have nested. She migrated back southeast to southern Québec in November 2018, eventually returning to the same area of Québec City.

In the summer of 2019 she returned to the central Canadian Arctic, where three other tagged owls summered, and in November 2019 came back south to Québec. In the summer of 2020 she nested in the northern Ungava Peninsula before heading south in early November, again wintering in Québec City.

Wells migrated north in April 2021, and nested again in the Ungava Peninsula. On Nov. 17, 2021, she checked in from the south shore of the St. Lawrence, about 290 km (180 miles) east of Québec City, and by early January 2022 was on her now-traditional territory near the Sisters of Charity of Québec convent in Québec City.

Wells’ transmitter was funded by contributions from the public. Please consider your own financial support via our crowd-funding campaign.


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