Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Project SNOWstorm Updates Snowy Owl Telemetry Mapping

Track the movements of radio-tagged Snowy Owls during recent years with Project SNOWstorm (photo by Paul Konrad).

Things are in high gear this winter with the Snowy Owls being studied day to day by Project Snowstorm, a remarkable GPS-GSM telemetry research project that tracks a varied group of individual Snowy Owls. You will find it especially interesting to see the daily movements of Snowy Owls during the winter, the timing and direction of their migrations, where they spend the nesting season, and where they spend the following winter. Two examples of Snowy Owls tracked by Project Snowstorm during recent years provide very insightful information about Snowy Owls as individuals and as a species.

One adult male Snowy Owl, referred to as Pettibone, provided some exciting but somewhat expected information, but it’s amazing to see how this Snowy migrated almost straight north to Banks Island, beyond the Canadian mainland, where he apparently nested, then returned to the northern Great Plains where it is spending the winter. To view Pettibone’s day to day movements during the past year, seehttps://www.projectsnowstorm.org/snowstorm-owls-winter-2017-18/pettibone/

Another interesting Snowy Owl, known as Wells, has been tracked during the past two winters in the same area of Quebec City. Although this adult female Snowy spends much of her winter in an urban setting, this bird has twice returned to Arctic locations, but on opposite sides of Hudson Bay. To view Wells’ movements, see https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/snowstorm-owls-winter-2016-17/wells/

This insightful information is especially important and you can learn more about the

total Project Snowstorm experience at https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/