On Saturday, in the early morning while most of us were sleeping, Norman Smith, Sanctuary Director at Mass Audubon’s Blue Hills Trailside Museum, was at Logan Airport. He wasn’t there to catch a flight, though. He was there to catch a snowy owl.
Snowy owls are drawn to the airport due to its tundra-like landscape, which mimics their summer breeding grounds in the Arctic, and plenty of rodents to dine on. Over the last 35 years, Smith has relocated some 700 snowy owls.
Smith left the airport on Saturday with an adult male owl. Upon further inspection, he discovered it had a band, one that Smith placed on the owl in March 2014. (As a side note, last winter Smith captured an owl that he originally banded 23 years ago!)
Norman Smith, with the help of his granddaughters, releases Salisbury.
Before releasing the owl on Sunday at Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Smith gave “Salisbury” a new, high-tech gadget: a solar-paneled transmitter courtesy of Project SNOWstorm. This allows Smith, the researchers at Project SNOWstorm, and the public to track and study the owl as it travels back north to its breeding grounds.
Read about the release in the Boston Globe and find out more about the Snowy Owl Project, including how you can support this important work.
Watch a video of the release
Follow Salisbury via the Project SNOWstorm Transmitter
Be sure to check out the updates via Project SNOWstorm blog.