SNOWstorm team member Tom McDonald’s been on a tear since the tail end of December, when a lot of snowies moved into northern and central New York. A bander like Tom never knows what that might mean. On Jan. 2, for instance, he got a call from a birder that there was an injured snowy owl in a field … Read More
Challenge Match from the Bobolink Foundation!
What an incredible show of support! In just a few weeks, people across North America have contributed to Project SNOWstorm with such generosity that we’re already more than 70 percent of the way to our goal of funding this year’s snowy owl research. Thank you so much. Now we have some even more exciting news to share. The Bobolink … Read More
A Baltimore Four-peat
We’ve tagged more than 40 snowy owls in the past three years, and every one of them has given us insights and surprises. Like parents with a large family, we try not to have favorites. But it’s fair to say that in our eyes, Baltimore is first among equals. We initially banded him as a juvenile in his first winter … Read More
Eyes on Dakota
One of the best things about Project SNOWstorm is the way it’s created a community of people interested in snowy owls — we researchers who form the core team, the hundreds of people who have contributed to make the work possible, and the thousands of people who follow what the owls are doing every winter. As we’ve mentioned several times … Read More
Returning Owls! Hardscrabble and Dakota Are Back
While we’ve been looking back this past week at Project SNOWstorm’s accomplishments, we’ve also had some exciting new developments behind the scenes: the return of two of our favorite owls. Hardscrabble and Dakota are back — and Dakota, it appears, has a bun in the oven. On Nov. 10, my wife and I had just been seated at a restaurant … Read More
SNOWstorm’s Birthday (part 3)
We’re marking the third anniversary of Project SNOWstorm, which kicked off in December 2013 with our first tagged snowy owls. This is the third and final look back at what we’ve been able to do with your help, since SNOWstorm is funded entirely by donations from the public. In the lab: While the GPS transmitters we’ve placed on more than 40 … Read More
SNOWstorm’s Birthday (part 2)
As as we mark both our third anniversary and the start of our new field season, we’re taking a look back at what Project SNOWstorm has accomplished — all of it with your help, since everything we do is underwritten entirely by donations from the public. Our successes are your successes. Today, we turn our attention to some of the discoveries we’ve … Read More
SNOWstorm’s Third Birthday
Three years ago this past weekend, Project SNOWstorm began in earnest. On Dec. 17, 2013, on the coast of Maryland, we tagged a young male snowy owl we called Assateague, named for the barrier island on which we trapped and released him. The small group of us who watched Assateague fly off into the darkness that night with our first … Read More
A New Season – and a View from the Arctic
Welcome back to a new season of snowy owl research with Project SNOWstorm! Some owls are already moving south into the Canadian prairies, the Great Lakes and Northeast, and we’re gearing up for what promises to be another exciting season of research. We’re anxiously waiting for the first returning tagged owls to appear and start downloading their summer data, and we’re … Read More
Baltimore on NPR
Adam Cole of the NPR science desk produced a really delightful and whimsical short film about his expedition this winter to follow the movements of Baltimore, who wintered on Amherst Island. Do yourself an eight-minute and 42-second favor and enjoy!