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  • 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 thislook 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 goodit'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 ...

This is the Snowy Owl; something of a mystery to science

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白雪貓頭鷹的祕密|NPR的SKUNK熊 (Secrets Of The Snowy Owl | NPR's SKUNK BEAR)

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    Binyann 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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