On The Wings Of Change

If you’ve been following my posts thus far, you’ll remember that the search for short-eared owls (SEOW) and long-eared owls (LEOW) has not gone as expected (and if you’d like a refresher, you can find the posts here and here). My melancholic last blog left me at the end of my field season with very few hits on my focal species to work with. After taking a step back from all of the data and a speedy re-framing of my expectations, I’m determined to deliver useful updates on these species to my supervisors at the WDNR.

Musings of a Night Owl

Riddled with mosquito bites and running on the amount of sleep you can imagine an owl researcher/barista gets (it’s not a lot), I come to you with another blog post about not finding short-eared owls (Asio flammeus) and long-eared owls (Asio otus) in Wisconsin. A black cloud of defeat has seemingly been looming over my head for days. If I believed in astrology, I’d say the Capricorn in me has never been more frustrated with the lack of evidence being produced by the hours I spend on roadsides in the dark. But it’s those same stars that mesmerize me, framed by skylines of white pine and towering oaks each sundown. On cloudy nights, endless seas of fireflies over prairies and marshes provide a terrestrial substitution and a reminder to never ignore the details. A recurring theme in this Master’s program has been framing success in the context of unique endeavors; maybe there’s more to this project than meets the eye, camouflaged by the absence of my focal species.

Updating the Atlas: A Search for Short-eared Owls and Long-eared Owls in Wisconsin

I’m a bird nerd. Inspired by learning the delicate physics behind avian flight, I’ve been a big fan of wings, beaks, and everything feathered since my undergraduate years studying Zoology. I’m interested in how they behave, how they adapt, and how their futures look as we occupy more and more of their habitats. That’s why I’ve teamed up with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) to try and gather some more information about exactly what is happening to Wisconsin’s birds.