April 14 update

Scott WeidensaulUpdates7 Comments

A quick update on the latest data downloads from the past few days, mostly transmissions from April 11 and 12. Millcreek and Womelsdorf were in fairly close proximity on the fast-shrinking ice of eastern Lake Erie. This combination image of the April 12 NOAA satellite image and their movement tracks show that they’re hanging near the ice edge — good … Read More

4/11 updates

Scott WeidensaulUpdates5 Comments

The results are in from Plum’s necropsy (conducted, as was Sandy Neck’s, by Dr. Mark Pokras at Tufts in Boston), and they confirmed what we suspected — that she almost certainly drowned. Plum was “in great condition, [a] recently eaten rodent in the gizzard, and bloody foamy fluid in the trachea and lungs,” Dr. Pokras said. It seems all but … Read More

Wasn’t that a mighty storm…

Scott WeidensaulUpdates31 Comments

We already knew that the storm that swiped the New England coast March 26-28 was huge, both the winds and snow in its immediate wake, and the epic seas, storm surge and tides that slammed the coast during the days that followed. Sandy Neck got caught up in that storm and died — and now it appears that we also … Read More

Sandy Neck update

Scott WeidensaulUpdates15 Comments

Sandy Neck’s remains were in very good hands today. Dr. Mark Pokras from Tuft’s famed wildlife health program in Boston performed the necropsy, and I wanted to share his findings — the interest in this bird and her loss has been tremendous. The only injury of any sort Dr. Pokras found was a small bruise deep in the left pectoral … Read More

Losing Sandy Neck

Scott WeidensaulUpdates19 Comments

It was an email we never wanted to get. Sunday night Dr. Rob Bierregaard from Drexel University and the Academy of Natural Sciences — who has been studying ospreys on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts for years — emailed us to say that one of his colleagues had found a dead snowy owl along the beach there earlier in the day, … Read More

March 27 transmission update

Scott WeidensaulUpdates10 Comments

The last few updates we’ve been focusing on the owls that are moving the most, so I thought I’d start today’s update, based on our March 27 transmissions, with the snowy that is moving the least — Oswegatchie, in upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River. Since he was tagged March 8, he has barely stirred from the town … Read More

…And the rest of the bunch

Scott WeidensaulUpdates8 Comments

Two updates in one day is an indication of how much is going on around here — a lot.  The first update focused on Monocacy, but there have been some fascinating movements by some of the other owls, and a reappearance by a couple of birds that had been off the grid lately. All these maps have been updated (a … Read More

When an Owl Goes to Church

Scott WeidensaulUpdates4 Comments

As I mentioned in my last update, we’ve been trying an experiment with Monocacy, the immature female snowy owl tagged in Maryland earlier this month. On Friday, our colleagues at CTT switched her transmitter to a new duty cycle that collects a GPS location every 30 seconds, instead of every 30 minutes. Consequently, we’re collecting data at 10 times the … Read More

Northward Bound

Scott WeidensaulUpdates16 Comments

There’s no longer any doubt that spring is working on our cadre of tagged owls. Four of them have made dramatic northward movements — and three of them have shown the kind of striking similarity in their paths that seems unlikely to be a coincidence. Four of the five Pennsylvania owls — Erie, Amishtown, Womelsdorf and Wiconisco — have moved … Read More

Busy week!

Steve HuyUpdates2 Comments

Seems the Project SNOWstorm team has hit the perfect storm of busy. All of us have been occupied due to prior obligations and haven’t been able to send any updates lately. We have managed to keep to the schedule on updating our maps. There has been some significant and interesting movement from some of the owls. Others haven’t really moved. … Read More