Here in northern New England, spring has arrived in a rush, with new leaves on the hardwoods and a rush of lately returned migrant songbirds — red-eyed vireos, great crested flycatchers and rose-breasted grosbeaks just this morning in the woods around our home in New Hampshire. And yet, there are still a few stubborn winter holdouts in the form of … Read More
And Then There Were Two
Apologies for the long silence — I’ve been out of town the past eight days, serving as guest ornithologist at the Lodge at Little St. Simons Island in Georgia, always a delight but something that doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things. Spring is definitely upon us, and in the past two weeks all but two of our … Read More
One More on the Team
I promised one more surprise, here at the very end of the season, and her name is Toronto. She’s a four-year-old female snowy owl who is back in the wild after an mishap with a high-rise building, and a helping hand from her namesake city’s largest wildlife rehabilitation group. On March 13, 2025, the owl suffered some minor injuries when … Read More
Scattering With the Season
And just like that, spring has sprung. Last week’s milder weather seems to have triggered a bit of a mass exodus. After showing very little of the pre-migratory restlessness we sometimes see in late winter, and for the most part remaining hunkered down on their winter territories, in the past 10 days we’ve seen the first big movements to the … Read More
One More on the Roster: Salvail
What will likely be the last new SNOWstorm owl of the winter season is watching the world go by from an airport — though fortunately not the biggest, busiest airport she could have chosen. Salvail, as we’ve nicknamed her, is a first-winter female snowy that was trapped at the Trudeau-Montréal airport on Feb. 5, 2025, by our colleagues from Falcon … Read More
Welcome Jolene and Carden
Whether you’re reading this before or after the Big Game, here’s a little Superb Owl news for you all: We have two new snowies to introduce, one of which is in a very familiar place, keeping very familiar company. Jolene and Carden are both first-winter females, both tagged by our stalwart colleagues Charlotte England and Malcolm Wilson of Toronto, as … Read More
Hochelaga (Probably Can’t) Phone Home
One of the challenges with using technology is that it changes. Which is good — the miniaturization of batteries and other tech has allowed scientists to make ever-smaller and lighter transmitters to track ever-smaller and lighter animals. But sometimes technology leaves you behind, and that seems to be what’s happened with one of our veteran owls, Hochelaga. We’ve known for … Read More
No, We’re Not Dyeing Owls Red
On Jan. 24, birder and photographer James Robinson Bill Diller photographed a snowy owl in Huron County, Michigan, that appears to have been liberally coated with some sort of orangish-red paint or dye. After the photos appeared on social media they set off a bit of a firestorm, initially people accusing Robinson of faking them with AI or Photoshop. Others … Read More
Who Has Been Up to What?
Between the holidays, travel and an impending book deadline, I’ve been a little slow with updates this season, for which I apologize. It’s worth mentioning from time to time that all of us at SNOWstorm do this on the side, so sometimes actual work gets in the way. (I hate that.) Starting in the east, Loren has continued to move … Read More
First-ever Global Status Assessment for Snowy Owls Raises Red Flags
For the first time, an assessment of the global conservation status of snowy owls has been completed, confirming that worldwide population was badly overestimated for decades, and indicating that snowy owl populations have declined by roughly a third over the past 25 to 30 years. The major study, which involved dozens of snowy owl researchers from five countries, all part … Read More