Track the Migration of Snowy Owls

Project Snowstorm continues to provide exciting new information revealed by satellite telemetry that shows the movements of individual Snowy Owls. This includes a long-term study of a third-year female Snowy Owl referred to as ‘Stella’ that shows her movements from wintering areas to summer range in the high Arctic, including specific migration routes from 2018 through 2020. This fall, the updated map of her telemetry locations illustrates that this female Snowy began her migration south September 17 after spending the summer on King Edward Island, just north of continental Canada and west of the northern tip of Hudson Bay. After migrating almost directly south, last week her position was in the southeast corner of North Dakota, near the borders of Minnesota and South Dakota.

This interesting Snowy Owl spent the summers of 2018 and 2019 even farther north in Nunavut – on Victoria Island as a yearling in ’18, and on Lougheed Island as a second year bird in ’19 – not far from the North Pole! After taking a pretty straight line series of flights along the west side of Hudson Bay, it continued south through Manitoba, crossing the border into North Dakota November 24.

Where will “Stella” winter this winter? Although this owl migrated to the border between the Dakotas last winter too, for an unknown reason it doubled back north to spend the winter just north of the border in southwest Manitoba. In 2019, this owl wintered in northeast Montana, migrating through Saskatchewan during spring and fall. But to complicate the movement history of this individual Snowy Owl, she was originally observed and fitted with its transmitter in southern Ontario, adjacent to the state of New York.

You can track Stella’s movements throughout the winter for yourself at https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/snowstorm-owls-winter-2017-18/stella/ And be sure to check on the progress of the many other Snowy Owls being tracked by Project Snowstorm.

Movements of a Nesting Snowy Owl

The activities of an older nesting adult female Snowy Owl (referred to as “Dorval”) spent the period from late April to the beginning of September on her nesting territory at the northern-most perimeter of Quebec. Dorval remained in a roughly 1,300-acre territory, probably incubating, then caring for nestlings and eventually for fledglings during most of that time. She left the area almost 3 months ago, on September 12, and for the next 2 months slowly worked her way south through western Ungava and the east side of Hudson Bay. That changed November 28 when she made a long rapid flight south, flying 775 miles during 3 nights of migration, arriving in southern Quebec, northwest of Ottawa, during the early evening of December 1st. For more of the story about this interesting Snowy Owl, see https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/posts/an-owl-on-a-mission/

Two Snowy Owls with 2 different stories to tell, each one fascinating; and there are many more owls to learn about on the Project Snowstorm website at https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/