We’re delighted to announce that another of our 2019-20 class of owls is back on the grid — Yul, an adult female tagged in November 2019 at Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (aviation call sign: YUL). She was trapped at the airport by Falcon Environmental, fitted with a transmitter by SNOWstorm team member and McGill University Ph.D. student Rebecca McCabe, and relocated … Read More
An Early Gift: Simcoe’s Back!
Back on Nov. 1, we had tantalizing whisper from one of our 2019-20 class of snowy owls — Simcoe, an adult female we had tagged last February on Amherst Island in eastern Lake Ontario. The first of each month, all the transmitters are programmed to send a simple “I’m here!” message if they’re in cell range, even if the signal … Read More
Attaboy, Otter!
This time of year, we can see some really dramatic changes — and that certainly has happened within the past week or so. We’ve gone from 15 owls in regular contact to just six, as most of the rest have apparently migrated out of cell range. Perhaps not surprisingly, two of the owls that wintered farthest north — Pettibone in … Read More
Losing Buckeye
We’ve seen some major migration to the north this past week, including one owl that is most of the way to James Bay — but the biggest news is the saddest, because we’ve lost one of our oldest and most interesting owls. You’ll recall my relief last week that, having survived a winter at Detroit Metro Airport (DTW), Buckeye was … Read More
The Pull of Spring
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
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