I apologize for the lack of updates the past week. It’s been an incredibly busy one, with a few unexpected wrenches and some great news balancing out each other. This will be a long update. The biggest news is that we completed our Indiegogo campaign this week at $36,663 — 183 percent of our original goal. We’re still gobsmacked by … Read More
New supporters
We’re grateful to several new partners that have joined the SNOWstorm effort recently. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, through its Wild Resources Conservation Program, is sponsoring a transmitter on an owl in Pennsylvania — the fourth (and likely final) unit in that state. And a collaboration between Black Swamp Bird Observatory, the Kirtland Bird Club and Toledo … Read More
An Indie-grace period
We’ve been counting down the final hours of our Indiegogo campaign, which we launched Jan. 2, and planned to close March 1. But Indiegogo (which featured Project SNOWstorm earlier this week in its newsletter) has pointed out that our 60-day campaign is actually only 58 days — and has extended our run two days, now ending on March 3. That … Read More
Millcreek
We hope you’re enjoying the latest map updates, which were posted last night. We’ll have another batch of updates on Saturday night, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek at one owl that hadn’t checked in during the last cycle: Millcreek. This immature male was banded Jan. 19 at the Erie airport, and for the first several … Read More
Snowy owl myths
This new video from the Weather Channel must set a new record for cramming the most snowy owl myths and mistakes into less than two minutes. It’s hard to know where to start, but here are two doozies. Far from mostly being skinny and starving, as the video claims, the vast majority of the owls that came south in this winter’s … Read More
Final days for Indiegogo
There are just five days left in the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign we launched Jan. 2, and which has been a phenomenal success. We remain stunned and humbled by the incredible support that the birding and conservation community has shown for Project SNOWstorm. Hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations have made it possible for us to do groundbreaking research on … Read More
Feb. 23 update
The past week was a busy one for us. Among other things, Dave Brinker and I spent a couple of days on Assateague Island in Maryland, hoping to catch a new female snowy for a transmitter. But while the bird we were targeting gave us a good run, the owl we ended up catching was a diminutive male, by far … Read More
Shuffling off to…
If you haven’t checked out Erie’s latest tracks, go straight to the maps page. This owl (whose transmitter is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology) continues to make some incredible movements over the frozen surface of Lake Erie, coming within 10 miles of Buffalo before turning back.
Amishtown is ready for his closeups
When we released Amishtown near New Holland, Pennsylvania, we knew he’d attract a lot of attention, since the area was already hosting three or more other snowy owls — perhaps the most reliable (and most viewed) snowies in the state. Here are a few photos that folks have taken of him in the past few days. Laura Wagner is the … Read More
Prodigal owls
Our first two tagged owls, Assateague and Buena Vista, have also been the most problematic. Back in December when we tagged them we were still feeling our way, applying a transmitter technology designed for use on diurnal raptors to a nocturnal owl for the first time. We learned some hard lessons about how to balance data collection, cellular transmission, battery … Read More