From literally the beginning of Project SNOWstorm in 2013, we’ve tracked snowy owls to the New Jersey coast. Our very first bird, Assateague, was captured in Maryland but quickly flew to New Jersey and spent the rest of the winter there. So, in subsequent years, did others tagged farther south, like Hungerford and Baltimore. But despite many attempts we’ve always … Read More
Sterling and Hilton Head West
Now that’s an amazing picture. On Sunday, Tom McDonald and Melissa Mance Coniglio were trapping snowies at Fair Haven Beach on Little Sodus Bay, near Sterling, New York, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Working one bird, they caught the attention of two others. With the first owl already captured, a second owl came in as well, with a third … Read More
Chickatawbut and Wells Come Back
Well, it’s been a busy week around here, an no mistake. We launched our 2017-18 research season, which is going gangbusters (thank you to everyone who has helped so far). We got Hilton, our first new owl of the season tagged, and we have been chasing snowies in a number of places, as we’ve shared with you all. We’ll have … Read More
On the Shoulders of Giants: Tom McDonald
This is part of a periodic series on influential and pioneering snowy owl researchers, on whose work Project SNOWstorm is building. * * * * * Although Project SNOWstorm is just marking its fourth birthday, we’re fortunate to have some of the most experienced snowy owl researchers in the world as part of our core team. One of the best … Read More
First of the Season: Hilton!
Our colleague Tom McDonald has kicked off the 2017-18 season in great form, tagging our first owl of the winter — a juvenile female he nicknamed “Hilton” for the town along Lake Ontario in western New York where she was caught. Hilton was captured near sunset the day after Thanksgiving along a newly finished rock jetty that pokes out into … Read More
SNOWstorm at 4
This time four years ago, I was contemplating a quiet winter in which I could finish the manuscript for a then already-overdue book on owls. What I wasn’t expecting was that just a week or two later my life — and the lives of dozens of my friends and colleagues — would be upended when […]
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A New Season – and a Report from the Arctic
Our research and monitoring of the tundra ecosystem continued during summer 2017 on Bylot Island (Nunavut, Canada), where for more than 25 years, my colleagues at Laval University in Quebec and I have been studying snowy owl nesting activities. Our team is pretty unique as it includes expert researchers scrutinizing almost every living organism in the ecosystem, from plants and … Read More
Oswego Forensics
Thanks to Dr. Guy Fitzgerald, veterinarian at the University of Montreal, we have a coda of sorts on the discovery of Oswego late last month beneath high-tension electrical lines a few kilometers from the Montreal airport. Dr. Fitzgerald examined Oswego’s remains, although he noted that by the time she was recovered, there was little remaining but bones and feathers. “[Her] … Read More
R.I.P. Oswego
This is hardly the news we wanted at the end the season: We’ve lost Oswego. Last week, as you may recall, this juvenile female was slowly working her way north and east, from Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River up to the Ottawa River along the southern Quebec border. Last Wednesday, she checked in at dusk from a powerline corridor a … Read More
One River North
We’re still watching Oswego, who is — very, very slowly — making her way north. Late last week she’d been on the St. Lawrence River near Ogdensburg, New York, but on Thursday the 18th she flew north, moving across southern Ontario and landing on Grande-Presqu’île, an island in the Ottawa River that is partially included in Plaisance National Park. After … Read More