Once our tagged owls head north in the spring, that’s usually the last we hear from them until they come back south in the spring and re-enter the cell network, through which we communicate with their transmitters and obtain their data. There is one exception: Otter. First tagged in January 2019, this then-three-year-old adult male carries a hybrid transmitter. In … Read More
Taking SNOWstorm on the Road
When we started Project SNOWstorm 10 years ago, it was on a wing and a prayer, pulled together in a matter of a couple of frantic weeks in late 2013 in response to the largest snowy owl irruption in the East in more than 80 years. We didn’t plan for this to become one of the largest snowy owl research … Read More
A New Season Draws Near
It’s that time of year, when the first snowy owls are starting to appear south of the Arctic — a few have popped up in southern Ontario and the Great Lakes region in recent weeks, and quite a few in the Canadian prairies in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. This will be Project SNOWstorm’s 11th season of snowy owl research, … Read More
Late News from the North
We’re on the cusp of May, a time when snowy owls are usually off our radar for the summer — but we actually have some late news from three of our tagged owls, while two that had been lingering in the south slipped away without leaving a goodbye note. We’ll start with the latter pair first. Salyer had been loafing … Read More
No More Messing Around
Last time, we puzzled a bit about the ways in which some of our tagged snowy owls were acting — Columbia moving due west instead of north; Huron making a gigantic loop around Lake Huron to wind up basically where she started; Otter, Salyer and Alderbrooke just sitting tight. Well, within the past week migration got serious. Huron turned north … Read More
Going West and Looping the Loop
So, the great “Bolt for the North” we were expecting last week didn’t materialize, although one snowy did shift his compass in that direction and one of our long-stationary owls did begin to move significantly — although to the west, not the north. And one of the owls that had been migrating north did a complete turnaround and is back … Read More
They’re Off (Some of Them, Anyway)
Just a quick update, but after a few false starts, two of our tagged owls are moving north in a serious way. Huron, after lingering for several weeks at the edge of Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron, flew 220 miles (355 km) north, up the “hand” of Michigan’s mitten, across the Straits of Mackinac and onto the Upper Peninsula, covering … Read More
The Next SNOWstorm Generation?
Since Project SNOWstorm’s inception, all of us here have felt that since our work with snowy owls is funded entirely by the public, through hundreds of small donations every year, we want to make as much of our data publicly available as is possible. (And of course, as much as is prudent; as we’ve noted many times, all of our … Read More
Alderbrooke, All Over the Place
For an owl that was off our radar until just a few weeks ago, Alderbrooke has proven to be one of the most wide-ranging of this winter’s owls. When she first popped back on the grid last month she was on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in southern Québec, 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Québec City. … Read More
First on the Way
And they’re off. We’ve been wondering when the first significant push north would occur among this winter’s cadre of snowy owls, and it appears Huron, the adult female that had been wintering in southern Ontario, is the first out of the gates. Since late January she’s been hanging out south of Tilbury, ON, between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, … Read More