Project SNOWstorm Hits Erie

On Saturday morning I got a call I’d been expecting and hoping for, although I hadn’t known when it would come. Suddenly all my amorphous plans were out the window and I knew how I was going to be spending the rest of the weekend.  Project SNOWstorm (see    http://www.projectsnowstorm.org/) aka Cellular Tracking aka Mike Lanzone, Andy McGann and team were planning to come to Erie, and they needed to get their hands on Snowy Owls.  I had assured them that we have owls, no problem, any time they need an owl, just come up to Presque Isle State Park, and with the help of the local birders who spend lots of time finding all kinds of cool birds at the park I would make sure they got owls.  The team obtained the necessary permits and were planning to make use of the large owl supply we have here.  And now they were on the way here, after their plan for working at the Pittsburgh Airport fell through for this weekend. I felt responsible for ensuring they got an owl or two or three here in northwest PA.  So I started finding owls.

Finding Owls

My first call after the initial call with the transmitter team was to Jason Fidorra, intermittent Audubon PA staff with me, who lives in Erie and who is more plugged in to the birders of Erie than I am.  As it happened, when I called him, he was actually standing on the observation tower on Gull Point (the tip of Presque Isle), looking at a Snowy Owl through his binoculars. Wonderful news-  a confirmed owl! This turned out to be the only owl seen all weekend on the peninsula, and it was in the least accessible location possible- the far sand spit out from the tower. I continued to make more calls to potential informers and to coordinate with the transmitter team.  It turned out they wouldn’t arrive until after 3 PM, so I had time to try to track down more owls.  In talking to others, I found that no one was seeing owls at Presque Isle (other than Jason). We needed more than that!  I started thinking about reports from places off the park.  The airport.  Where else?  Mary Birdsong thought of the one seen frequently at the Fairview Business Park.  Okay my plan was to check those places on my way up to Presque Isle, then scope out the park myself.  I started with Fairview, and right away I found an owl, sitting conspicuously on a rooftop in plain view.  Check!  I went to the airport.  After meeting up with Susan Smith who has been keeping an eye on owls there, I found one owl hunched down on the ground in between the runways looking like a slightly dirty snowball.  Check! I went to the park.  Drove around. Searched high and low (but didn’t hike out to the point- too late in the day). No owls at the park.  

Catching Owls

Once the team arrived late on Saturday afternoon, they went straight to the Fairview Business Park and staked out the owl on the roof there.  These are some of the most experience raptor trappers in eastern North America, so I was confident they would get this owl, then have all day Sunday for more!  I was torn about leaving, but I had a prior commitment so I went off to my other event, thinking I would soon be hearing about their success. To my surprise, I learned via text and emails during the evening, the owl ignored their best efforts to lure it into their trap, so they called it a day at about 9 PM.

First thing in the morning on Sunday, the team plus many of their friends and followers combed the park for snowies.  No owls at the park.  So, they tried the airport.  The airport didn’t have enough staff to send someone out with them to trap within the restricted area, and the owl that was visible there was again hunched down, on the ground, not actively hunting.  Not likely to be responsive to a trap. So, back to Fairview.  All day long, with many comings and goings of friends, acquaintances, weekend visitors from Pittsburgh and beyond, the team tried to interest this owl in the trap.  The pigeon was of zero interest to it. A rat was tried.  No interest. Meanwhile it was catching voles and scarfing them down.  Mice were tried.  No interest.  It casually watched the people watching it.  It seemed amused. In fact it was basically thumbing its nose at all of us. It was easy to imagine it laughing.

Meanwhile, I felt responsible for providing owls, so I tried to find more owls.  I went out to Erie Bluffs, thinking the permits are in place, so why not try?  Unfortunately the corn there was never harvested so the habitat wasn’t good for the owls.  I hiked in to the dune restoration area, but no luck there. I had already contacted my Crawford County informants, trying find out if anyone had an owl there. No is the answer.  I’m sure there are owls in the countryside in Erie County, but the problem is, all the birders just go to Presque Isle when they want to see a snowy, so no one is really out looking in the countryside. I end up driving a very circuitous route back to Meadville through many snow drifted back roads in Erie and Crawford counties, scanning all the fence posts and telephone poles for owls. Back in Fairview, by mid-afternoon, hopes are dimming, and there is talk of retreat, defeat, waving the white flag, giving up. This owl is not destined to become a star for Project SNOWstorm. Slowly all the onlookers and visitors head home.  The core of the team, MIke and Trish plus Owlman Tom McDonald from Rochester decide to check back on the airport owl. Others will look along the interstate on the way south. 

I made it home and was glumly watching the Patriots go down, feeling like I had failed in my responsibility to provide owls.  A little before 6 PM, I got a call from Mike.  THEY CAUGHT AN OWL!  Hallelujah!  Success!!! They caught it by the airport, but wanted to take it indoors to work on because they were teaching Tom how to attach transmitters. Could I get them into the TREC?  Yes, I can. About 3 minutes later I was driving north, back to Erie. Just after I got on I-79, I got another call from Mike.  He was laughing.  THEY CAUGHT A SECOND OWL!  Apparently the two had been interacting with each other, chasing or trying to establish hunting rights somehow, and it followed in the first one’s footsteps (wingflaps?) into the trap.

Processing Owls

We set up in one of the classrooms at the TREC. The owls were in big tubes that Tom uses specifically for holding owls after trapping.

 First step:  weigh the owl in the tube.  Once extracted, the empty tube is weighed and the owl’s weigh is calculated.

Next step: measure the owl’s tail length before taking him completely out of the tube. After that, finally, pull the owl the rest of the way out and take a good look at him!  Many oohs and aahs! We look at his markings and discuss his age and sex.  Male, either six months old (Second Year) or 18 months old (Third Year), based on a (possibly) replaced seventh primary. I don’t recall which was settled on in the end.

More measurements come next: wing, skull, hallux talon, bill length, width. It turns out this owl is very heavy for his size (like Mickey Rooney, says Tom, Short but heavy!). He has been eating well lately.

He gets a band on his left leg.

Then the transmitter outfitting starts.  This is a long process.  The fit of the harness is incredibly important. The owl lives with this the rest of his life. It essentially becomes part of his body. Mike picks out a transmitter first, checking the battery levels of all the ones he has on hand. 

Then the harness fitting starts.  Woven teflon (flattened tubular strip about a quarter inch wide) is the main material.  It is sewn together around the owl, then the strips are worked under the feathers so they fall between feather tracts on the owl’s body. It can’t be too loose or too tight. 

Finally, the transmitter is adjusted to the satisfaction of Mike and Trish. The ends of a few feathers are clipped from just above the transmitter to minimize possible shading of the solar panel.  These are kept for isotope analysis. 

The last thing is to draw a blood sample. Several tests are run on each owl, for genetics, exposure to heavy metals and pesticides, etc.

Trish is such an expert at this that not a single drop of blood ends up anywhere other than in the sample. Finally, Erie-1 is done!  He has been a trooper the whole time and now gets to go back in his tube, and we put it next to an open window so he can cool down. We have opened the windows to make it cooler, but it is still warmer than these guys are used to.

We repeat the whole process with the second owl.  This time, Tom makes the harness and attaches it, since this is his training session. How lucky for us that we had a second owl for him to try his hand on, while still under the watchful eyes of Mike and Trish. This owl (Erie-2) is another young male, and is also quite heavy for his size.  In fact he has bulging fat in his armpits, one of the places that owls store fat. Unlike the first one, who was very mellow and relaxed the whole time, Erie-2 is a bit hyped up and tries to bite at every opportunity. We end up fashioning a makeshift “hood” out of a bandanna that I have in my bag to keep him calmer.

I won’t prolong this post any more.  We finished all this pretty late at night. It was time to let them go.

Releasing owls

We debated where to release them.  Normal practice is to take them right back to where you got them.  In this case, though, we really didn’t want them to be exposed to the risks at the airport.  So we decide on releasing them at the park.  We knew they are quite capable of making their way back to the airport on their own (like Philly, another owl with a transmitter), but wanted that to be their decision, not ours. We decide on the “ballfield” at Presque Isle, just past the Ranger Station.  From there they can continue out onto the peninsula, or they can return towards the airport if they prefer. We released them one at a time, a little before midnight. Each one got a snack before going. Our way of saying thank you and to make up for lost foraging time,  Each one was alert and aware and eager to go.  Owlman Tom gave them each a nice boost into the air and they flew strongly across the field off over the bay.  And each one veered right, back towards the airport, once over the water. 

Success!  Now we just have to be patient and wait for their transmitters to download every three days.