Thursday and Friday were a one-two punch for our transmitters. Thursday evening was the regularly scheduled check-in cycle, about 8 p.m. EDT. And the units are also programmed to do an “emergency” check on the first of each month. No matter how thin the reception, regardless of whether there’s enough connectivity to actually transmit data, they’re supposed to send the … Read More
The View from Paradise
It may look and feel like spring in a lot of places, but on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan there’s more than a little bit of winter still hanging on. The spruce woods are full of old, crusted snow drifts, while the portion of Lake Superior that wraps around Whitefish Point is still jammed with immense expanses of ice, thick … Read More
Alma and Monocacy
One of the frustrating aspects of the kind of telemetry study we’re doing with Project SNOWstorm is losing track of an animal. Sometimes we find out what happened, like the two tagged snowy owls last winter that were swamped by a nor’easter and drowned on the Massachusetts coast. Other times we don’t. Two birds that have been longstanding puzzles this … Read More
Go North, Young Owl (and the Old Ones, Too)
Although it’s been more than a week since the last post, we’ve been really busy — and so have the owls, which is why this is a long post. We’re seeing some spectacular spring flights, and hearing from owls that have been off the grid for a while. And the grid — that is, the extent of the GSM cellular … Read More
All Kinds of Shaking Going On
Spring is really working on our tagged owls — even if 35 square miles of ice, up to eight feet thick, doesn’t sound much like spring to you. Up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where the snow is still waist-deep in places, Chippewa has finally budged from her winter-long home territory, where she’s been burning a hole in the … Read More
From Great Lake to Great Lake
The latest round of check-ins show that more and more of the tagged snowies are getting the itch to move — some in quite dramatic ways. For instance, Whitefish Point, who has rarely moved more than one section road from her winter territory on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this winter, took a long ramble on March 31, flying about … Read More
North, South, East and West
Last time we updated you on the movements of Baltimore, whose northbound migration included a stop in New York City. But we’ve had some real surprises from our other tagged owls, too, some of whom can’t seem to figure out which direction they want to go. That’s not unusual as spring starts to come on, and the owls are feeling the … Read More
Baltimore Takes Manhattan
We’re definitely seeing spring at work on some of our tagged owls, while others are still staying put — and one is heading resolutely south. It’s been an interesting week, but today’s story is about our first Manhattan snowy owl. Across the East, the late week period saw a surge of mild air and strong southerly winds. Where I live … Read More
Thanks for a Hugely Successful Campaign
We’re speechless — once again, the supporters of Project SNOWstorm exceeded our hopes, and our goal for our SNOWstorm 2.0 Indiegogo campaign. By the time this winter’s campaign wrapped up last night, we had hit $17,745 — 118% of our original goal. That’s incredible – and an incredible testament to all of you who have made this research possible. We … Read More
And Now: The Midwestern Owls
As promised, here’s the second half of our weekly update, covering the tagged owls in the Midwest. We had several no-shows this week, and have fielded a few worried emails from folks who wondered what has happened to Alma, for example, who hasn’t checked in since mid-February, or Prairie Ronde, whose last transmission was earlier this month. In both those … Read More