This is the Snowy Owl; something of a mystery to science
Carl Linnaeus - the guy who was really good at putting animals into categories
didn't realize that females and males were the same species
Ornithologists still bicker about where snowies belong in the owl family tree
And because they breed in the frozen north, we don't really know how many of them there are
how they live, or if they can adapt to a warming world
But we may soon have some answers.
In 2013, the United States was surprised by
an invasion of snowy owls
There was an abundance of lemmings to eat in the arctic that summer,
and so lots of owlets hatched.
They spilled down into the United States by the hundreds, then by the thousands
sightings were reported in Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina - even Florida
This was a once in a lifetime chance to learn the secrets of the snowy owl
Scientists trapped dozens of visiting owls
“Hold still”
and fitted them with solar powered backpack transmitters.
“She’s awake now”
“And you're about to get let go.”
They called the operation Project Snowstorm.
Among the tagged owls was a young male named Baltimore
He had hatched way up in the arctic the previous summer
His mom had kept his egg warm for a month, while his dad brought her food
When he hatched, he was an ugly ball of fluff
His dad now brought him food too,
and hismom chased off hungry foxes
He grew quickly - learning to hop on strong legs
and then ... fly! He migrated south, finally stopping at
Martin State Airport in Baltimore, Maryland.
It probably reminded him of the wide tundras of his birth.
But planes regularly kill owls ...
so humans caught Baltimore, gave him a backpack,
and released him on a remote beach
Over the next year, Baltimore carried his transmitter to the northern wilderness of Canada
It logged thousands of data points
the most extensive log of a wild owl's movements ever recorded
You might say Baltimore is the best known snowy yet
And so I decided to bundle up, take that same trip,
see the things Baltimore saw
and maybe meet him up in Canada.
"So I packed my lunch”
"And I gave my boss the slip”
”wrote myself this theme song”
"goin' on a field trip”
This is the exact spot where Baltimore began his journey
and so a year later, that's where we started our trip
Baltimore's backpack transmitter had recorded his location down to the meter every thirty minutes
and every few days it uploaded that data via cell towers.
We followed the data points up to New Jersey,
where he had rested on empty summer homes
And we started to run into people who knew Baltimore
"Baltimore was a brave bird cause he hung out in one of the most important bald eagle spots"
"Bald eagles are the only things here that snow owls are scared of.”
“It was very sunny that day”
I came across this white bird body As it turns out it was Baltimore
"Just enjoying the sunshine"
"and I was enjoying watching him"
And then on to New York City
"What I’m thinking just by working here He must have been amazed by the noise,"
"the height, the lights"
"It gets no better than this – look at this"
"So this is where he was"
On and on he went, across Lake Ontario and into Canada
"He flew right on that top of that mast up there -- you remember that Di?"
"A snowy owl sat right up on that mast there" "Oh, yes"
"That was quite a sight wasn’t it?"
Baltimore stopped at Amherst Island, then headed north to summer in the arctic
Come winter, he returned to Amherst, an island where they're crazy for owls.
“Happy spring everyone!"
"12 snowy owls were present the other day"
"– well they’re still here" “That’s quite a bunch”
“That is quite a bunch cause we got 20 on the Christmas Count and we had 25 searchers out"
The wonderful story of Baltimore, right
I spotted the white white owl on the very top of CJAI’s silo
"His mouth was open you would swear he was laughing at us"
"Baltimore was hanging around the radio station and around the school"
“We went outside and then the snowy owl was just like staring at us.”
But we couldn't find him either of those places Spring has arrived, and there's a chance Balitmore
could have already headed north. His last set of locations were scattered across
this 17000 acre island
But those data points are three days old.
I see a little white dot
It looks pretty good – it’s like a big white male
<>
"It could be Baltimore"
"I don’t see a backpack"
"Oh my gosh, look that’s Baltimore right there"
We’re never gonna to find this owl!
"Oh, and is that one out in the field"
Every time I see a mailbox I think
that’s an owl
Oh!
That’s him, I can see the transmitter
I think that’s him I think that’s Baltimore! Right there!
That’s really him!
And he’s looking at us
There he goes -- the owl whose secrets aren't so secret anymore.
We now know he loves to hunt at night, that he likes to eat not just voles, but water birds
We know that he can reach speeds of 55 mph
fly 140 miles in a stretch
We know the altitude of his route
and the places he likes to stop on his 1600 mile migration
All his data -- along with data from other owls,
is helping to answer our questions about this mysterious species
Maybe, that new understanding will help us protect them
This year, Baltimore turns three
That's the age when we think a snowy owl first seeks out a mate in the arctic
And as he flies north into this new chapter,
we will be able to follow.
♫ Morning star lights the way
♫ Restless dream all done
♫ Shadows gone, break of day
♫ Real life begun
If he survives his summer in the arctic, and returns to cell range
He'll bring with him a whole new set of data
data that tells the story of frozen hunting grounds
and perhaps a nest full of owlets.
♫ Going home. Going home, I'm just going home
♫ It's not far, just close by, through an open door ...