There’s been a lot going on at Project SNOWstorm, despite the lack of recent updates. Our core group got hit with travel (and travel delays), illnesses and a few other unavoidable hiccups that kept us occupied the past week or two, but we’re ready to catch everyone up with what’s going on. The biggest news is that we have two … Read More

Thursday night was a busy one around here — four of our newest cohort of owls checked in, as well as two of last winter’s returnees. Let’s start with the veterans. Millcreek is still chilling in Toronto, and leading a decidedly terrestrial existence this winter, compared with his floe-riding and ice-wandering on Lake Erie last year. And to our continuing … Read More

Project SNOWstorm has its first Ohio owl — Buckeye, an adult female tagged through the cooperation of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and the Kirtland Bird Club in Cleveland, along with USDA’s Wildlife Services, which trapped and relocated her. Buckeye was a repeated offender at Detroit Metro Airport in Michigan. She was first trapped there in … Read More

Settle in for a long read, folks — there’s lots of news this week, both on newly tagged snowies and returned birds from last year. We have updates both old and new on Monocacy, whom you’ll recall was just retagged and released last week after being relocated from LaGuardia Airport in Queens. She was originally tagged in March 2014 in … Read More

Last winter, Wisconsin was a hotspot for SNOWstorm activity, with four owls tagged in the Badger State. It’s been quieter on that front this winter, but not for a lack of trying — Wisconsin has experienced a very heavy irruption, and our colleague, noted raptor biologist Gene Jacobs, has been busy trying to trap and tag snowies. But because so many … Read More

What a week! After struggling, frankly, for the past month — with repeated trapping trips to the New Jersey coast, Lake Erie and elsewhere, lots of close calls and frustrating near-misses — things finally came together in a big way this week. We shared the story of Monocacy’s surprising return, but there’s a further twist on that story involving another … Read More

I had just finished giving a talk in Delaware last weekend and was climbing in my car, listening to voice mails. Our friend and colleague Dr. Erica Miller, a volunteer veterinarian with Project SNOWstorm, was on the line, and I could instantly tell from the tone of her voice that something big was up. Erica had some electrifying news — … Read More

Patience is one of the things snowy owl tracking teaches you, and we’ve been patiently waiting to hear from Chaumont, the adult male owl that Tom McDonald tagged last month on the northeastern tip of Lake Ontario, near the New York village of the same name. We assumed from Chaumont’s long silence that he was out on lake ice, but … Read More

To our surprise and delight, another of last winter’s owls has reappeared — Braddock, banded and tagged by Tom McDonald near Braddock Bay, on the Lake Ontario shore of New York, on Jan. 25, 2014. Braddock spent last winter on and around Lake Ontario, moving between the lake ice and shore. In spring he began moving northwest across Lake Ontario … Read More