If you’ve been following SNOWstorm for a while you doubtless know that our necropsy and toxicology research has shown a widespread and growing threat to snowy owls from second-generation anti-coagulant rodenticides (SGARs), which threaten an enormous array of wild raptors and mammalian predators (as well as pets and children). We’ve seen the percentage of snowy owls we’ve necropsied with what … Read More
Packing Up and Heading North
It seems almost everyone got the same message. After months of barely moving, even Emblème and Fulgence, both youngsters who are usually the last to migrate north, lit out this past week. Perth had already shifted up to Georgian Bay, and by March 28, Atwood was following suit, so that by April 5 she was on what ice remained between … Read More
One for the Record Books
Normally, the cutoff for tagging new owls for Project SNOWstorm is early to mid-March, since we’re primarily interested in winter movement data, and by late March, many snowies are already starting to head north. Once they get out of southern Canada, the cell network (through which their transmitter send data) thins out very quickly. On the other hand, sometimes opportunity … Read More
Perth on Ice
After a false start last week, when she did a there-and-back-again loop away from her winter territory, Perth started what looks like serious migration north late last week. March 20 she left the area around West Monkton, ON, flying east and then north over the next two days, eventually moving out onto what little ice remains along the southeast shore … Read More
Springtime Restlessness
The official first day of spring doesn’t come until Friday, March 20 (at 10:46 a.m., to be precise), but some of our snowy owls are already feeling its tug as the days lengthen and the sun climbs higher in the sky. Pretty much on schedule, we’re seeing some signs of restlessness, as owls that have been home-bodies start pushing outward, … Read More
Welcoming Perth, a Not-Exactly-New Owl
Perseverance pays off, and the sterling example this winter has been our Ontario colleagues, Charlotte England and Malcolm Wilson, who have spent weeks trekking all around the southwest of the province trying to trap adult snowy owls to deploy transmitters. It’s not that they couldn’t find owls; the trouble was those adults all gave the clear impression of having seen … Read More
A New (Freshly Washed) Face, and an Old Friend
We have a new transmittered owl, and the very surprising return of our oldest veteran, back south for the first time in years. The newbie first. Fulgence is a second-year (first-winter) male snowy owl, rescued from an industrial waste pool in Saint-Fulgence, Québec, about 330 km (235 miles) northeast of Montréal along the Saguenay River on Feb. 4, 2026. Except … Read More
A Quick, Frigid Update
As those of you who live in the northeastern U.S. or eastern Canada already know, it’s been an exceptionally cold and very snowy winter in this part of North America. Here in New Hampshire we experienced the coldest December on record, and the thermometer has only dropped since then. According to Environment Canada, while January featured a brief spell of … Read More
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
In 2025 Project SNOWstorm, in cooperation with Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, contracted with Dr. Diego Gallego García of Argentina to conduct a post-doctoral analysis of an enormous set of spring and summer movement data from snowy owls in the Arctic and subarctic, working with Dr. Rebecca McCabe at Hawk Mountain. The initial analysis covered more than 40 individual owls … Read More
Look Who the Cat (or the Cold) Dragged In
I guess it’s finally gotten cold enough up north to push even an old, experienced snowy owl south. Not long after I’d lamented, in our last update, the fact that only two previously tagged owls — Hochelaga and (we presume) Newton — have come south into cell range this winter, on Tuesday, Jan. 27 Atwood, an adult female that was … Read More