Monday morning found me peering intently at a photograph of ‘Delaware’, our latest owl to receive a transmitter. However, I wasn’t as interested in the owl as much as what was below her perch. A blob of white with some dark matter. It looked fresh and healthy, a dropping from a bird that has eaten. But was it hers? A quick email to … Read More
Wanted: Dead or Alive
(Dr. Cindy Driscoll is the state fish and wildlife veterinarian for Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources [DNR], and has served as the veterinary coordinator for Project SNOWstorm since our start last winter. Read how Cindy got involved through SNOWstorm cofounder Dave Brinker — and click here for a longer story and photos from the University of Pennsylvania about how Project … Read More
Century Makes Two
Let me start with an apology, for the gap in updates — I was out of the country last week, and the rest of the SNOWstorm team was scattered to the four winds as well. Which is a shame, because our second owl from last winter has popped up in cell range — Century, banded in Massachusetts in March by … Read More
Millcreek is Back!
Last week, my phone suddenly went nuts — Mike Lanzone and Andy McGann at CTT, who make the transmitters we use, and Dave Brinker in Maryland, were all trying to call at the same time, with the same fantastic news. Millcreek was back! This immature male snowy owl, which Mike and bander Tom McDonald had tagged last Jan. 20 in … Read More
Report from the Arctic
By Jean-François Therrien Every year since the late 1980s, a group of researchers of which I feel lucky to call myself part has headed north to the high Arctic — as do snowy owls — to monitor their summer breeding areas. Our long-term study site is on Bylot Island in Nunavut, Canada, at 73 degrees north, above Baffin Island. It … Read More
Another SNOWstorm?
Welcome to the first blog update of the 2014-15 winter season from Project SNOWstorm. Whether you’ve been following our progress from the very start, or just joined the excitement, we’re glad you’re here. Project SNOWstorm is a collaborative effort, involving dozens of researchers, banders, wildlife veterinarians and pathologists who are studying the movements of snowy owls. The project started last … Read More
Oswegatchie update
Oswegatchie’s transmitter is sitting on my front porch in Pennsylvania, soaking up solar energy, having made the trip back from Quebec last week with our SNOWstorm colleague Jean-François Therrien at Hawk Mountain. (J.F. was himself on his way home from summer fieldwork with snowy owls on Bylot Island, in the Canadian Arctic.) Based on the transmitter data, we knew Oswegatchie … Read More
Losing Oswegatchie
The last time we heard from Oswegatchie — the only snowy owl from our 2013-14 cadre that was still in cell range — was June 16, when he was hanging around the huge Mine Canadian open-pit gold mine at Malartic, in western Quebec, where he’d been since the beginning of the month. After he missed the next few check-in nights, … Read More
Waiting (again) for Oswegatchie
Oswegatchie’s last check-in was June 16, when he was still hanging around the Mine Canadian in Malartic, Quebec — the largest open-pit gold mine in Canada. He’d been steering clear of the pit itself — not surprisingly, since a big hole in the ground is not the kind of habitat that would appeal to a snowy owl. (To get a … Read More
There and Back Again
Oswegatchie has been the gift that keeps on giving — and the owl that keeps coming back. Every time we think we’re about to see the last of him, he reverses course to stay within cell range, or finds the only cell tower for miles. And he did it again this week. On Friday night he was on Lac Malartic … Read More