These have been strange and disquieting days for everyone, no less so for those of us with Project SNOWstorm. The global coronavirus pandemic has upended — well, pretty much everything. But even in hard times, owl research goes on. As of now, everyone on the SNOWstorm team is healthy; most are working from home, but some have unfortunately experienced layoffs … Read More
Project SNOWstorm’s Veterinary Health Assessment Collaborative
First things first; it’s clear that Covid-19 is upending normal life for everyone, and we hope everyone in the Project SNOWstorm community is taking the situation seriously, following expert guidance, and staying safe. This is a new and largely unknown time for all of us. That said, we’re still working hard on snowy owl research, and will continue to keep … Read More
Fond du Lac, and the Owl-fecta
Wisconsin has been an important study area for us since we launched Project SNOWstorm, and it remained a priority region for us this winter, with plans to deploy two transmitters there — either on snowy owls relocated from Fox River valley airports, as we did last year, or individuals trapped on farm fields and grassland in the Badger State. It … Read More
At Last, Sweet Success on Amherst
Sometimes science happens thanks to careful planning, and sometimes opportunities unexpectedly present themselves. Our two newest tagged owls are examples of the latter — although the serendipity in question has taken longer than expected to blossom. Amherst Island, at the northeastern corner of Lake Ontario, has long been famous as a winter owl hotspot — not just for snowies, but … Read More
Tribute to Bob Gallagher
Tom McDonald, one of our Project SNOWstorm founders, lost a close friend and longtime collaborator in his snowy owl research this past year. Here is Tom’s tribute to his friend Bob Gallagher. ——— During the busy snowy owl season, you’ll usually find our blog post regaling our readers and followers with exciting adventures and stories, highlighting the trials and tribulations … Read More
Zugunruhe to You, Too!
We’re just a few weeks away from the spring equinox, and as the sun creeps higher in the sky and days begin the lengthen dramatically in the northern latitudes, this is when we start to expect some restlessness to set in among our tagged owls. And that’s exactly what’s been happening the past couple of weeks. It’s not a rush … Read More
Hail, Columbia!
We’re happy to have a new owl on the grid in Wisconsin — Columbia, captured near Madison Audubon’s Goose Pond Sanctuary in Arlington, WI. SNOWstorm collaborator Gene Jacobs has worked closely with the Madison Audubon folks since 2015, when he tagged an adult male we nicknamed Goose Pond, whose transmitter they sponsored. In 2018, again with the chapter’s support, he … Read More
Good News Across the Board
The news this week is good. Several owls that had been in dicey places have moved (or, in one case, been moved) to safer locales. Buckeye is, at least, keeping to the less busy parts of Detroit Metro Airport, and after a month on the lam, Pearl is back on the grid, with more than a thousand GPS points tracing … Read More
Dorval, A Feathered Boomerang
With the continuing cooperation of Falcon Environmental Services at Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, we have another tagged snowy owl in southern Québec — Dorval, an adult female named for a community that borders the airport and a nearby island in the St. Lawrence River. Dorval is, as they say, “known to authorities” — she was first trapped at the airport on … Read More
City Owl, Country Owl
While the big news lately has been Wolverine losing his transmitter and Buckeye getting hers, our other tagged owls have been keeping us busy, watching their movements, worrying abouy them and trying — as we always do — the better understand the ecology of these birds through their tracking data. Of our two owls in southern Québec, only Otter is … Read More