Apologies for the lag in updates; everyone on Project SNOWstorm does this in their spare time, and sometimes spare time is hard to come by. I was out of town and largely off the grid last week, and unable to post. Sorry to have kept you waiting. Unfortunately, the biggest news is the saddest — we’ve lost another owl, our … Read More
Across the Bay and Off the Ice
It’s been quite a week since the last update. The low point, obviously, was confirming Hereford’s death, but there’s also been a lot of very cool news from the other owls, and that’s what we’ll focus on this time. We won’t hit every owl (like Stella, whose great photo our friend Dan Lafortune got on Amherst Island recently) but check … Read More
Gone Too Soon
While this has been an exciting winter in many ways, it’s been a rough one in another — for the third time this season, we’ve lost an owl, and in a depressingly familiar place. Hereford, whom we tagged Feb. 12 on the New Jersey coast near Stone Harbor, was recovered dead this week after we noted that his signal had … Read More
Shaking Things Up
The days are getting longer, and right on schedule, we’re seeing some restlessness start to appear among this winter’s cohort of owls. But there’s a lot of ground to cover this week, including the second “bomb cyclone” of the winter on the Northeast coast, an ice-queen owl on the Great Lakes, and a turbine-dodging bird on the prairies. Here are … Read More
Straubel, and the Weekly Roundup
For the final time this winter, we have a new owl to introduce — the last member of what is now our Wisconsin quintet, joining Bancroft, Badger, Arlington and Austin. She is Straubel, a juvenile female named for Green Bay-Austin Straubel International Airport, where she was trapped Feb. 21 by Frank Ujazdowski, one of half a dozen falconers volunteering their time … Read More
Weekly Update
It’s been quite a week, with new owls in five states — but there’s lots happening with the rest of this winter’s cadre, too. Here’s a roundup of where we stand with all 24 of the snowy owls we’re currently tracking. It’s a lot of ground — geographically and metaphorically — to cover. The most intriguing movements this week were … Read More
A New ‘Jersey Boy’
It was a hard blow last month when we lost Higbee to a vehicle collision during an epic snowstorm on the New Jersey coast. He was one of the three “Jersey Boys,” a trio of immature male snowies tagged this winter by Mike Lanzone, Trish Miller and David La Puma. The fact that Higbee’s transmitter had been underwritten by the … Read More
Logan on the Cape, Manisses on the Island
Too much news from SNOWstorm? No apologies — this has been our busiest and most exciting winter since the first season that we launched this project in 2013, and the pace isn’t letting up at all. Today we have two New England birds to tell you about — one in Massachusetts, and our first tagged owl in Rhode Island. Longtime … Read More
Pettibone and Gichigami
In keeping with our goal of tagging more owls in the prairies and western Great Lakes this winter, we’re pleased to introduce two newly tagged snowies — one in North Dakota, the other on Lake Superior. Pettibone is named for the nearby hamlet of the same name in Kidder County, ND — but it’s a fitting name for this almost … Read More
Over the Top!
We’re delighted to announce that, thanks to several exceptionally generous gifts over the weekend, we have exceeded our funding goal of $30,000 — a testament to the continuing support Project SNOWstorm has received from both the general public and conservation organizations. Your tax-deductible gifts make the work we do possible, and in that we are doubly privileged — both to … Read More