A Snowy Owl named Arlington

Meet Arlington. Photo by David Rihn

This winter is shaping up to be a great snowy owl irruption year. Ryan Brady with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources estimated there are at least 225 snowy owls in Wisconsin this winter. In a typical year, Wisconsin sees a couple dozen snowy owls, so finding ourselves in a snowy flurry is just delightful!

Snowy owls are among the two or three species at greatest and most immediate risk from climate change, yet we know relatively little about their ecology during migration, and why they're here in human-dominated landscapes (read more about the snowies at Goose Pond in our December 15, 2017 FFF post). We’re honored to work with Project SNOWstorm again this winter to study snowy owls in a really cool way: using a backpack transmitter.

Project SNOWstorm tracks migrations and movements of snowy owls across North America. Photo from projectstowstorm.org

Project SNOWstorm began its work in the 2013-14 irruption and in the first four years they and partners have tagged 48 owls in 10 states, including Wisconsin. In fact, early in the project's history they worked with a snowy named “Goose Pond” (aka “Goose”), a clue as to its residence that winter. Goose was caught by conservation biologist Gene Jacobs at the Central Wisconsin Airport south of Wausau. Madison Audubon donors sponsored Goose to be outfitted with a Project SNOWstorm transmitter, and the bird was released south of Goose Pond at the Arlington Agricultural Research Station. (Relocation away from airports is a common and useful practice to protect both parties.)

Through data collected by Goose’s and other snowies’ transmitters, Project SNOWstorm has documented little-known and surprising aspects of snowy owl ecology and behavior, traced their migrations in unprecedented detail, and delved into their health and the risks they face from environmental toxins like mercury. Project SNOWstorm has also partnered with federal wildlife agencies and airports to find better ways to keep airplanes and owls safely apart. They published a paper in 2017 showing trends in the habitats used by tagged owls.

With this winter’s snowy owl irruption, Project SNOWstorm was once again looking for owls in Wisconsin on which to place transmitters. With three owls around Goose Pond Sanctuary, Madison Audubon Society stepped up and volunteered to help trap owls and raise $3,000 to cover the cost of a transmitter. If you want to help with the cost of that transmitter, please donate today!

The process was quite the rollercoaster.

A snowy owl perches in the late afternoon sun. Photo by Lester Doyle

On December 13, Goose Pond staff saw two snowy owls within two minutes from the Kampen Road residence. As a result, an owl trapping plan was quickly developed for the next day with Gene Jacobs and Tom Meyer who are both federally licensed bird banders. (Gene specializes in banding owls and banded 490 saw whets and 20 long-eared owls this fall at Linwood Springs Research Center. Tom and Rick Hill are the lead bird banders at Cedar Grove Ornithological Station where they banded over 800 raptors this fall alone!)

On December 14, the snowy search crews assembled. We received a phone call tip that a snowy owl was seen near Goose Pond’s Sue Ames Prairie just before the banders and volunteers arrived. However, after 90 minutes of extensive searching, attendees were disappointed to find not a single owl, snowy or otherwise. We were skunked. Goosed. Snowied.

But, owl trappers are a persistent group and Gene, Tom, and Rick, along with more volunteers tried again on January 4. Hopes were again high. One owl had been seen the night before along Highways 51 and K and another was seen near Highway K and Goose Pond Road.

Forming a game plan before scouting for the snowy owls. MAS Photo

Tom and Rick arrived in early afternoon and we immediately headed out. By 1:30 p.m. we found the owl near Goose Pond Road sitting in a large bare field. This particular bird waited patiently in the field for the next several hours until our owl scouts and trappers were assembled into teams and sent off to both keep an eye on the owl we'd already seen, and look for another one. Maddie with team members Matt Reetz and David Rihn, and Sue with team members Monica Hall, Janet Flynn, and Greg Tiedt, parked just off of Hwy K where they could watch the owl's movements, and potentially take off after it if need be. Mark and others searched with Gene for additional owls.

Gene was spot on when he said, “humans are the least patient animal on the planet.” Watching and waiting for a snowy owl to move, you quickly realize just how patient most animals, particularly predators, really are!

I spy with my little eye something that is white. Photo by David Rihn

It wasn't until about 4:30 p.m., just as the shadows lengthened enough to finally cast a pall over his bright feathers, that the owl finally flew to the top of the gravel mound in the quarry. Tom and Rick had already set up a cage holding two starlings as bait. We waited in great suspense until suddenly a University vehicle came down the road by the quarry, and the owl flushed to a nearby fence post. The owl knew the starlings were there, but it was far more cautious after that! For the next 30 minutes, Tom and Rick noted that the owl would land on the ground next to the trap and walk around and around, looking at the starlings, considering what to do. 

Gene was summoned to the quarry to help, and he was getting ready to try and trap the owl with a bow net. Right about this time Mark called and reported that he and Brad Zinda, a wildlife student from UW Stevens Point, found another snowy sitting on a utility pole in the front yard of a house nearby. It was nearly 5:00 and getting dark. Since the snowy owl at the quarry was now skittish, Gene decided to try his luck with the snowy Mark and Brad found.

Gene set up a bow net on adjacent University land and backed up his vehicle just enough so that he could still monitor both the owl and the bow net containing a rock pigeon as bait, in nearly complete darkness. After 20 minutes, the owl attempted one quick pass at the pigeon in the bow net and then returned to a pole nearby.

By now it was about 5:35 p.m. and Gene turned on the headlights so he could see the trap. Then, quick as a flash, the owl swooped for the pigeon and Gene hit the remote control that caused the bow net to close.  Gene, Stacy Taritas, and Maddie all made a mad dash into the bitter cold to release the owl and rescue the unharmed pigeon. Stacy later mentioned “that night was the experience of a lifetime.”

The bow net was packed up and the crew headed to the Kampen Road residence, owl carefully in tow, where it was learned that the other owl at the quarry had also been captured! The first owl finally went for the starlings and his talons got tangled in the trap for just long enough to allow the volunteers to approach and untangle him (and save the starlings).

"The Boys", with Quarry on the left and Arlington on the right. Photo by Maddie Dumas

Both owls were young males and each was banded. The first owl was the smaller of the two and named "Quarry". The second was given the name “Arlington”, and was fitted with a solar pack transmitter that will send hourly location GPS data through a cell phone tower to “owl central” on the east coast.  

By the light of the rising super moon, the owls were both released back into the wild to hunt and enjoy the cold, crisp evening. What a thrill for Maddie and volunteer Gerry Bennicoff who released the owls!

Arlington can be tracked on the Project SNOWstorm website.  More info on another Wisconsin snowy owl caught and outfitted with a new backpack is available here. We will also be providing updates on the MAS website about our new friend Arlington. If you would like to visit Goose Pond Sanctuary to see Arlington and Quarry with your own eyes, the best time to search is the last hour of daylight. Respect for wildlife and private property is of the utmost importance, however; please do not approach the animals or trespass to get a closer look!

This, and one other snowy owl died after being struck by passing vehicles on January 12. Photo by Monica Hall

Related and sad news came to us this morning (Jan. 12). Two snowy owls within two miles of the place Arlington and his comrade were released, were killed by vehicles. While we are glad neither was Arlington, it is heartbreaking to see such preventable destruction of life. Please drive slowly and cautiously to help care for our magnificent wildlife!

NOTE:  Neither the starlings nor pigeon were harmed in the traps.

Written by Mark Martin and Susan Foote-Martin, Goose Pond Sanctuary Resident Managers, and Maddie Dumas, Goose Pond Sanctuary Land Steward

Rough-legged Hawk

Photo by Mick Thompson

The rough-legged hawk spends the summer encamped on the high arctic, where ample prey and rodent populations feed its young. Of the genus Buteo, these birds are characterized by long, broad wings, short to medium tails and an easy-going attitude that frequently finds them riding thermals with wings fixed, soaring above the fray. While Buteos are known for their group migrations, like that of the broad-winged hawk, the rough-legged hawk is often seen alone or in small groups. Also, unlike other Buteos, the bird relies often on its strong flight—steady and methodical at a sharp dihedral—which carries the bird confidently over bodies of water and approaching fronts.

Photo by Michael Janke

This is the only Buteo to breed in the far north, and its covered tarsi, small bill, and small feet are all adaptations to the arctic, where the bird preys upon lemmings and shrews and voles. On their arctic breeding grounds, the birds nest on cliffs and escarpments like on the Colville River in Alaska. Some research suggests that these nesting grounds might be sensitive to a disrupted climate. High precipitation events and warm weather can erode the cliffs and cause nest failure. The microclimate where nests were most successful was a small portion of available habitat, as spots with sheer cliffs inaccessible to foxes and not facing north are a small subset of available nests. Of nests studied, over one half were at moderate to high risk of disappearing due to cliff erosion.

Like many birds of prey, the reproductive success of rough-legged hawks is related to the density and availability of prey. Nests close to lemming grounds saw higher success rates than those without. In good years, high success across the range can push wintering birds throughout the sun belt in the southern US, though they are very rarely found in the deep south.

Photo by Phil Brown

On wintering grounds, the birds consume shrews and voles in open grassland or farmland habitat. Perched from a high vantage point, the rough-legged hawk may soar in place for a minute, flapping its wings to stay afloat as it scans side-to-side. From its 50-100 foot panorama, the bird will drop, talons extended, hopefully grabbing its prey. Breeding ground diets were composed of  62% Microtine rodents, 30% birds, and 7% arctic ground squirrels. These birds have few predators as adults, but arctic foxes will readily steal from the nest. Other predators include wolverines, bears, humans, and great-horned owls.

You should be able to find a rough-legged hawk around Faville Grove. There has been one individual spotted north of the sanctuary on Highway G, seen frequently posted on the electrical poles. The sanctuary area provides an excellent matrix of open grassland and agricultural lands for a rough-legged hawk.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Northern Goshawk

Photo by Jeff B

Curt and Arlys Caslavka stopped at Goose Pond on Christmas Day, as they usually do, to see what birds were present. Their Christmas present that day was an excellent look at an adult northern goshawk that flew over their car along Kampen Road and our food plot north of the pond.

According to the eBird records, only one other person, Nick Walton, has found a goshawk at the sanctuary on January 12, 2001. Goshawks are also rare in Columbia County and the only other sighting in Columbia County by Aaron Stutz on January 19, 1998 at the Poynette MacKenzie Center.

What was the goshawk doing at Goose Pond? Maybe it was traveling though southern Wisconsin looking for forested habitat and decided to fly over the former Empire Prairie and by luck the Caslavkas were in the right place at the right time.

Goshawks feed on a wide variety of prey including other accipters, snowshoe hares that weigh twice as much as themselves, ruffed grouse, woodpeckers including pileated, blue jays and crows. John James Audubon wrote, “When the Passenger Pigeons are abundant the Goshawk follows their close masses, and subsists upon them.” Maybe the goshawk was hunting for cottontail rabbits, ring-necked pheasants, and mourning doves in our food plot.

Photo by Karen Bullock

The name goshawk comes from the Old English word for “goose hawk," a reference to falconers that have trained goshawks for over 2,000 years to hunt birds including geese. However, the goshawk was about one month too late for finding large numbers of geese at Goose pond.  

Sam Robbins wrote in Wisconsin Birdlife, “The northern goshawk is a powerful flier best known as a fall migrant or winter visitant during those years when it invades Wisconsin in exceptional numbers. Perhaps once every 8 to 10 years, when ruffed grouse and snowshoe hares are in short supply.” Sam reported that once person counted 40 in one hour at Wisconsin Point in 1967. “Even more remarkable was the 1972-1973 hawk invasions. One-day high counts at Cedar Grove Ornithological Station in Sheboygan County totaled 206 Goshawks and 215 individuals at the Little Suamico Ornithological Station in Oconto County."

Northern goshawks are secretive birds and are hard to find... unless you're near their young. They are vocal near their nests, and they are fiercely defensive and have been known to attack people who come too close to a nest including banders who wear helmets for protection.

Goshawks are birds of wild forests and tend to occur in large tracts and across much of their range, live mainly in coniferous forests and are found across North American and Eurasia. Goshawks favor larger tracts of forests. Nesting birds are sensitive to logging activities such as building roads, and loading and skidding felled trees. The U.S. Forest Service includes the goshawk on its “Sensitive Species” list for many regions; this requires that proposed management activities, such as logging, consider potential impacts on goshawks.  Tom Erdman and Tom Meyer work provide their nesting data to the Forest Service to protect nesting sites. 

Photo by Alan Schmierer

Tom Erdman and Tom Meyer, Master Bander at Cedar Grove, have been studying nesting goshawks for over 30 years in the national forest in northeast Wisconsin. They have many interesting stories over this time including the story of a bander that climbed a goshawk nest and had a fisher jump out. Fishers are a major predator on goshawk nests. 

Falconers search out goshawks as hunting partners and state and federal rules regulate the number of wild goshawks taken for falconry through a strict permit process. The impact of falconry on wild North American goshawk populations is thought to be minimal. The appeal is there though, with some falconers from the Midwest coming to Wisconsin every year to take one young from a few nests.

Sam Robbins always said, “The shortest distance between two points in Southern Wisconsin goes through Goose Pond.” The Caslavkas received quite the gift when they stopped by on Christmas day.

We hope you will be rewarded with special sightings at Goose Pond in 2018. Recently we have seen common redpolls, a snowy owl, two short-eared owls along with northern shrikes, rough-legged hawks, and northern harriers.

Happy New Year!

Written by Mark Martin and Susan Foote-Martin, Goose Pond Sanctuary resident managers

Northern Shrike

Northern shrike photo by Mick Thompson

Though slightly smaller than a robin, this bird may indeed size up a robin and decide it fit for dinner. Perhaps, since robins can fly and evade most birds of prey, the predator will lure in the robin with a trick. Producing low, liquid whistles, the predator (a Northern Shrike) draws the American robin close to its perch on a hawthorn bush proudly extending itself on a savanna's edge. Sure enough, the robin takes the bait and the shrike strikes the bird with its hooked bill. Unfortunately, for the shrike, it is a Passerine and thus it lacks the lethal talons of an Accipiter. The shrike's initial grasp for the robin fails, and the robin flies away, indignant that such a small bird, a bird of its own order, would try to eat it.

This robin's story ended without malaise, but one in five songbirds will end up clutched in the beak of a Northern Shrike after a chase. If it were a vole the shrike had chased, three in five would end up in the bird's tight grasp; and if it were an insect, about nine in ten would end up on the wrong side of the shrike's hooked bill.

A northern shrike strikes again, leaving this treat for later. Photo by Drew Harry

Shrikes employ the interesting habit of caching prey. Finding a sharp point of black locust, hawthorn, plum, or barbed wire, the shrike will “cache” its prey, which means it saves the prey for later. Northern shrikes have been known to cache as many as nine prey items, and will return to these food banks when times are tough.

Sometimes, a Northern Shrike's eyes get too big for its bill, or perhaps the bird tires of chasing skittish songbirds. Nevertheless, there have been reports of shrikes attacking spruce and sharp-tailed grouse. These were unsurprisingly unsuccessful attacks.

A group of shrikes is called a watch, and the Latin name is a fierce one: Lanius excubitor, meaning butcher watchman. The group name for shrikes seems hardly relevant, as these birds often overwinter on a solitary range encompassing about 1,100 acres, which is about the total area that Faville Grove Sanctuary helps manage. We documented one Northern Shrike during our Christmas Bird Count this past weekend, and it's likely that bird is the solitary “watchman” in the area. With a name like butcher watchman, it's no wonder these birds are found alone. But, if you see this bird—gray on top and white on bottom with black wings and a black mask on the face—you're in for a real treat. It's the only Passerine in Wisconsin to regularly feed on vertebrates, its vocal range can be quite impressive, and its aerial pursuits can be simply breathtaking. You may even indirectly confirm a shrike in the area when you see a shrew or vole cached on a thorny bush. Do not be spooked, as of yet no shrike has tried to lure and attack a human.

Written by Drew Harry, Faville Grove Sanctuary land steward

Cover photo by Frank D. Lospalluto

Snowy Owl

Out here on the sanctuary, our favorite sign that winter is finally on its way are the first sightings of snowy owls! Even before our first snow flurries, we had a flurry of snowy owl activity with two confirmed owls in multiple sightings. Though we don’t see them every year, this year seems to be promising for snowy owl sightings in our area. In Wisconsin the snowy owl irruption began in November, with 105 birds spotted by November 29 -- a record for this date according to data from the Wisconsin DNR from the past eight years. Snowy owl sightings have been widespread across the Midwest and along the East Coast, with larger concentrations around the Great Lakes.

Photo by Richard Armstrong

Snowy owls are the largest owl (by weight) in North America that spend their summers breeding and hunting their favorite food, lemmings, in the Arctic Circle. Some years they will remain in the treeless tundra through the winter, while other years -- like this one -- they migrate to southern Canada and northern United States (and must feel quite at home when they rest in the treeless fields of Wisconsin). Click here to read about habitats snowies use when they migrate south during irruption years. The magnificently white owls (think Harry Potter's Hedwig) are adult males, while females and juveniles have more brown specs throughout their plumage.

Photo by Rich Armstrong

And they are as thrilling to see in person as you imagine or can attest to. My first snowy owl sighting was this year at Goose Pond! Now that I've seen one, I'm hooked on seeing them again. But we at Goose Pond spend a lot of time keeping tabs on these owls not just because we're obsessed with these beautiful creatures, but because they are mysterious animals and what exactly they're doing here and for how long is a puzzle we are trying to piece together with Project SNOWstorm. More on that below.

At Goose Pond the first sighting this year was on November 30 when my husband, Aaron Dumas, was driving home down Prairie Lane and saw a very white snowy owl fly in front of his vehicle from the direction of Wingspan. What a shot it would be to get a photo of a snowy owl sitting on the Wingspan goose! Multiple sightings over the next two weeks of both this white snowy owl, and a bird with more dark flecks show that we have at least two snowies out here. It's possible that the owls were originally attracted to our area by the constant calls of the swans, geese and ducks that remained on the pond until recently. At least two owls have hung around since the waterfowl left. 

On the evening of December 12, Goose Pond staff and volunteers were searching for the owls from 4:00 PM till dark. Sue, Arlene Koziol, and Linda Pils found a dark-flecked owl sitting on a UW Agricultural Station outbuilding about a two miles southeast of the pond. About ten minutes later, my group -- Mark, Caleb, and I -- spotted another dark-flecked owl sitting on a utility pole on Goose Pond Road just north of our Lapinski-Kitze Prairie. We were also rewarded with sightings a great-horned owl and a short-eared owl in the area. It was an owl sort of night!

Photo by Lester Doyle

The next evening Mark and I again searched for owls just before dark. Mark spotted a very white snowy owl flying at us, then over the Kampen Road residence. Just a minute later we found a brownish snowy owl on Kampen Road just east of the railroad tracks. Two snowies in two minutes!

Given the amount of snowy owl activity out here, Project SNOWstorm, a snowy owl research and conservation group, will try to attach a GPS-GSM transmitter on one of owls! Last night was our first attempt at trapping an owl for the project, but with twelve people out searching we saw not a single snowy owl! We will try again in a couple weeks.

Photo by Pam Sam

The transmitters that Project SNOWstorm uses are a wonderfully innovative piece of technology. They are solar-powered, and use the cell phone network to record latitude, longitude, and altitude of the bird at intervals as short as thirty seconds. These transmitters have given researchers detailed insight into snowy owl behavior. For example, they found:

• some birds spend nearly all their time within a quarter mile of where they were banded, while others will fly hundreds of miles in a few weeks.
• snowy owls feed much more heavily on birds in the winter than previously thought. Some snowies remain on large bodies of water for weeks at a time, following small openings in the ice that attract gulls, ducks and grebes.  
• snowies, as apex predators, are still being exposed to a great number of environmental contaminants such as DDE, mercury, and rodenticides.

Madison Audubon Society partnered with Project SNOWstorm in 2015 to release a snowy owl out at Goose Pond Sanctuary that was originally trapped at the Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee. Read more about the bird, named “Goose Pond,” here.

Transmitters cost $3,000 each, and Project SNOWstorm relies on donations from the public and non-profits like Madison Audubon Society to cover these and other research costs. If a Goose Pond owl is outfitted with a transmitter this year, we will likely name it “Arlington” after the village and township of Arlington, and the historic Arlington Prairie. 

Photo by Lester Doyle

Get into the wintery spirit and come look for the snowy owls yourself! The best times to search are dusk and dawn and keep your eyes on on utility poles, fence posts, and silos. Please be sure to keep a respectful distance from these wild animals, as they rest and hunt around Goose Pond Sanctuary. If the owls looking at you (let alone flying away from you), you're too close!

Happy Owl-idays to all!

Written by Maddie Dumas, Goose Pond Sanctuary land steward

Cover photo by Rich Armstrong