The female adult snowy owl can be seen on what they are now calling the "distant mound." You can see a portion of the nest mound nearest the cam, but the owlets have traveled to the distant mound and this is where they are hanging out. Patient viewers can see the owlets, appearing as smudgy black dots when an adult approaches the nest.

Researchers walked over the surrounds of the nest and distant mounds today, and reported "two healthy, banded owlets." The adult swooped around while they were there and has been at the distant mound ever since. No doubt the adult snowy feels like she has successfully defended her brood.

As of July 10, 2014, 23 nests have been located in a 100 square mile area. The intent is to band every owlet. Given that there is about a 500 yard distance between nests, they have a job on their hands! The researchers plan to return to this site on Saturday.

Later in the day, during the Q&A, Hollie_CornellLabStaff panned and almost immediately found this little traveler:

Alta, the white object you're seeing is just a UFO - LOL. You can also see it in the scaps above of the adult owl at the distant mount. That will give you a perspective of the distance and size. I wish the adult owls would be as concerned as I am about the little ones wandering the tundra. Doesn't seem safe.

I hope many of our forum members had a chance to hear Denver Holt talk about the snowy owls at Barrow, AK. He works for Owl Research Institute (ORI) and has researched snowy owls for 23 years. He stood out there in the cold, windy tundra and patiently answered questions. He reports that two of the snowy chicks are still alive and doing well. It is a moderate year for lemmings, and the lemming situation has worsened since spring, so there's overall about a 60% mortality rate across the 25 nests he monitors. The PBS documentary that Patti posted above was filmed in Barrow, on the same general area we are now watching. ORI provided the research material for the documentary.

Interesting tidbit we learned from Denver: Female snowies prefer the whitest of males for a mate. Since snowies gradually get whiter, in the first couple or three years, young males form "batchelor groups" until they are white enough for a female to accept them.

Thank you, Denver Holt!

Alta, unfortunately the audio did not cooperate when Denver made his presentation, so they had to type what he said. It may be on explore.org somewhere. Re mortality, the chief causes are starvation and hypothermia following long bouts of rain. In addition to predation by jaegers, polar bears, foxes, wolves, eagles (both bald and golden), short-earred owls (There could have been other predators.)

Today, we were treated to some panning and they located both owlets -- together! They really scoot about fast. When they flap their wings, I believe I can see some white feathers.

This week (Sunday the 20th I believe), Cornell lab writer Pat Leonard spent a day with Denver Holt and the snowy owls of Barrow, AK. Here is Leonard's fascinating writeup:

http://blog.allaboutbirds.org/2014/07/21...er-denver-holt/

Snowy owls have come out of hiding in Barrow AK. Yesterday, an adult snowy owl made regular appearances on a new mound where we believe an owlet may be located. S/he was there last night at 10:30 CT (of course the sun never sets in Barrow). This morning, I tuned in and was delighted to find an owlet on the screen. This little guy has returned to nest mound and is in full view.

Owlet patiently waited for breakfast, and Voila! Papa zoomed in with a lemming; Mama flew in right behind to supervise; and Zip! both were gone before the owlet could say grace.

Now we know where to go to cool off this summer! It's snowing in Barrow AK!

Here is a second report from Cornell Lab staff writer Pat Leonard. In addition to some great photos of one of "our" owlets, there's insight by veteran researcher Denver Holt.

http://blog.allaboutbirds.org/2014/07/24...n-our-live-cam/

Cornell Lab staff writer Pat Leonard also sends us this beautiful video:

http://youtu.be/Yg5dE5JdYM0

Grumbling and complaining about the cam and the blue twirly and no audio, etc etc etc reached a fever pitch at snowy owl cam site yesterday, and Charles_CornellLabStaff (himself) posted the following:

"We've taken notice of the dissatisfaction in the cam view and I wanted to take a moment to explain the basic underlying issue affecting the cam view.

The cam itself is capable of spectacular HD footage; however, there's very little bandwidth available to use at this site. Most of the other cams featured on explore.org have bandwidth 5-10x more than this site in Barrow—explore.org's technical team are literally pushing the limits of what is possible in this part of the world. The local internet infrastructure near the site in Barrow can only accommodate a medium resolution stream, and that is why the level of detail seems less than on some of the other explore.org cams.

Everyone hopes to have the opportunity to feature the Snowy Owls in future years as part of the research being done by the Owl Research Institute—we'll continue to work to improve our ability to bring you the kind of imagery and experiences that have made this season as rich as it has been. As the cam winds down for this year we'll be posting some off-air highlights so that you can enjoy a view of the Snowy Owls during their offseason.

Thanks for watching and fingers crossed that we all get the chance to do an even BETTER job (observing, moderating, installing, communicating) next year!"

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Soooo today things are better, right? Wrong! A fog bank has settled in over the tundra and now nobody can see anything at all! Snowy owl-watching requires great patience...

The snowy owl cam was turned off for the season yesterday. IMHO Hollie and Rown, Cornell mods did an outstanding job as tour guides! Hopefully next year the snowies will be aired again. The female adult snowy owl came out to "small mound" to say goodbye.

Here's a brief update on the ‪#‎snowyowlcam‬ explore.org from biologist, Matt Larson:

I finally found the chicks on 10 Aug 2014, they hadn't been seen since 25 July. They moved almost a mile out towards the coast and were roosting in the bluffs. The female was nearby and was still pretty attentive. Male was roosting closer to the nest, but did vocalize and fly in when I was walking out towards chicks. The two chicks were 55 and 53 days old respectively and both are flying very well and wouldn't let me get closer than a couple hundred meters before flushing and flying long distances.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=909618502385993&fref=nf