One of the coolest aspects of Project SNOWstorm’s tracking has been documenting the extent to which some snowy owls hunt waterbirds over open water, a practice long recognized by snowy owl researchers like SNOWstorm co-founder Norman Smith, but rarely quantified in any way until now. Readers here will recall that earlier this month, Norman tagged Chickatawbut, a juvenile female owl … Read More
Congratulations to Lauren Gilpatrick
For the past several years, biologist Lauren Gilpatrick at the Biodiversity Research Institute in Maine has been a great partner here at Project SNOWstorm — not just working with her colleagues in the field to get Maine snowy owls tagged and tracked, but lending her artistic skills to the cause by donating her exceedingly cool Burly Bird snowy owl stickers … Read More
Weekly Update: Loop-d-loops
A fairly quiet report this week, although several of our birds continue to show signs of seasonal wanderlust, with several of them making looping rambles that wound up where they started. Running down the roster from east to west, Wells remains in southern Quebec along the St. Lawrence River. After spending much of last week near the town of Saint-Henri, … Read More
Trouble Commenting? Help is Coming!
If you’ve had trouble commenting on our latest posts, we’ve just learned why — the system that we use was permanently disabled recently, without notice to users like us. We will be updating to a new system in the coming days, and expect to be able to open up commenting again very soon. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Getting Restless
We expect to see some restlessness as the spring days get longer — even after a major snowstorm, which much of the Northeast this past week. And we saw some of that behavior this time, along with transmissions from a couple of AWOL owls. After skipping a week, Dakota came back online after some sunshine on the Canadian prairies, and … Read More
Time to Head…South?
The past 10 days has been an interesting period, with some unexpected movements, some owls sticking close to their usual haunts, and a couple of absent snowies that may indicate that spring migration is really getting underway (or could just be low batteries). Favret, the adult female tagged in upstate New York by Tom McDonald, had initially moved north to … Read More
Chickatawbut and ISOWG
We’re tracking a new owl at Project SNOWstorm — and she has an unusually distinguished pedigree, given the circumstances of her tagging. She’s a juvenile female named Chickatawbut, captured March 7 at Logan Airport in Boston by SNOWstorm co-founder Norman Smith of Massachusetts Audubon, and released the next day at Salisbury Beach, close to the New Hampshire border. Our newest … Read More
Holding Patterns
It was a pretty quite week on the tracking front, with all of our owls — those still on winter territory, and those that have started to migrate — just biding their time. Out west, Dakota and Chase Lake remain on their respective territories in Saskatchewan and North Dakota. Oswego failed to check in again this week from her namesake … Read More
Say Hello to Favret
The ever-busy Tom McDonald has tagged another snowy, an adult female on the shores of Lake Ontario — Favret, our 47th SNOWstorm owl. Tom caught Favret (that’s pronounced “fav-RAY”) the morning of Feb. 27 on Cape Vincent, at the eastern corner of Lake Ontario, one of the most important wintering areas for snowy owls in that region, and an area … Read More
Coyote Graphics Fundraiser a Success!
Thanks to everyone who made our fundraiser with Michael Boardman and Coyote Graphics in Maine such a big success. You’ll recall that Michael offered to donate $5 to Project SNOWstorm for every owl-themed t-shirt that they sold — and they sold a bunch! By the end of the promotion Feb. 21, SNOWstorm supporters had ordered 90 Coyote shirts, which translates … Read More