Woodworth – 2018
An adult male tagged Dec. 10, 2018, on the Stutsman/Kidder county line, ND, by Matt Solensky of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Research Center.
Coddington – 2019
An adult male tagged Jan. 2, 2019, in the Buena Vista grasslands in central Wisconsin.
Harwood – 2019
An adult male tagged just north of Fargo, ND.
Argus – 2019
Argus is an after-fifth-year male, caught 1/20 along I-29 north of Fargo, ND, by Matt Solensky.
Otter – 2019
An adult male captured 1/18 in Jefferson County, NY, not far from Fort Drum, by Tom McDonald.
Plainfield – 2019
This adult female joined Project SNOWstorm near Plainfield, Wisconsin on January, 27, 2019.
Seneca – 2019
An adult male tagged Feb. 22, 2019, in Seneca Township, NY.
Returning Owls
Island Beach – 2017
An immature male, this snowy owl was the first Project SNOWstorm bird tagged in New Jersey, and was named for Island Beach State Park, where he was captured Nov. 29, 2017, by Mike Lanzone of Cellular Tracking Technologies. Island Beach’s transmitter was underwritten by a gift from New Jersey Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory. After spending the summer of 2018 in the Ungava Peninsula of northern Quebec, he checked in Nov. 11, 2018 from southern Quebec.
Pettibone – 2018
This adult male, tagged Feb. 10, 2018, in Kidder County, ND, by Matt Solensky of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Research Center, is at least five years old. His transmitter was funded by generous donations from the public, and he was named for a nearby town. Having summered (and likely nested) on Banks Island, NWT, he migrated south to Saskatchewan in November 2018.
Pickford – 2018
Pickford, a juvenile female, was tagged Feb. 2, 2018, by Nova Mackentkley and Chris Neri near Pickford, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just 2 miles (3.4 km) from Pennington. She was occupying the same winter territory used in 2015 by Chippewa. Pickford’s transmitter was underwritten by donations from the public. She checked in Sept. 26, 2018, from the east shore of James Bay, where she’d spent the summer, and in early January 2019 moved rapidly to New Brunswick.
Stella – 2018
This juvenile female was captured by a four-person SNOWstorm team Jan. 15, 2018, on the south shore of Amherst Island, Ontario, at the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. She is part of an ongoing study to determine the extent to which 27 large wind turbines, being installed on Amherst, impact the movements of wintering snowy owls there. Her transmitter was underwritten with generous donations from the public to Project SNOWstorm. Having spent the summer of 2018 on Victoria Island, Nunavut, she returned south in late November 2018 in central Saskatchewan, moving south to the Montana border.
Wells – 2017
Wells is our third Maine owl, captured at Portland Jetport by USDA APHIS, tagged by our colleagues at the Biodiversity Research Institute and released Jan. 25, 2017 at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge near Wells, ME. She is an adult female and weighed just over 2,000g. She nested in the northern Ungava Peninsula during the summer of 2017, then spent the following winter in Quebec City, QC. In 2018 she summered 2,800 km (1,770 miles) to the northwest on King William Island and the Boothia Peninsula in the central Canadian Arctic, returning by December 2018 to Quebec City. (Photo ©BRI)