Let's Explore Zugunruhe* With Owls

December 9, 2021 3:25 PM

"It's hard to find anyone who is ambivalent about snowy owls. These huge, white Arctic raptors, with their riveting lemon-yellow eyes, have an unmistakable charisma," writes Scott Weidensaul. But until relatively recently, we didn't know much about their lives outside of the Arctic. How the Aftermath of an Owl Invasion Became a SNOWstorm. (See the project here.)

Meet this winter's birds: SNOWstorm Owls (Winter 2021-22)

On the ruggedness of tracking gear: Badger's Last Flight

Invaded by owls! What is an irruption?

Snowy owl health: Sampling Snowies

* Zugunruhe, or “migratory restlessness”

Charismatic snowy owls, previously.

posted by MonkeyToes (4 comments total)

picture caption:
"Good fences make good neighbors; tracking data show that these two adult female snowy owls, Chippewa and Whitefish, in Michigan rarely trespassed on each other's territory."

I would so frame that picture.
posted by clavdivs at 4:28 PM on December 9, 2021

I saw one once. We were driving on a highway in Northern Saskatchewan at night through woods when the headlights caught an immense winged specter as it lifted off the road in front of us. Chilling, enrapturing.
posted by No Robots at 9:22 PM on December 9, 2021

Project Snowstorm is using some really cool tracking technology, with amazing temporal resolution. Of course, they do have the advantage of working with such large birds. A friend of mine is GPS tagging long-eared owls (an incredibly understudied species in North America), and because of size limitations on the trackers that limit battery capacity, he's only getting positions once a day or even less to make the battery last longer.

I hope to get lucky enough to see a snowy one day. They winter on the regular here in New Jersey, but I refuse to chase them. They attract too much attention already. People I know who have gone to see them have told me ire-raising tales of people behaving badly to get photos they were happy with. Owls are compelling birds, and they seem to bring out the worst in some photographers (and some birders, to be fair, but mostly photographers from what I've seen). It's gotten so bad that we've banned all owl posts on the 2000 member local birding Facebook group I help run.
posted by mollweide at 8:13 AM on December 10, 2021

It's hard to find anyone who is ambivalent about snowy owls.

Indeed, I’m pretty sure everyone is fond of owls.
posted by notoriety public at 8:43 AM on December 10, 2021