birdbling: OWLS OUTREACH TO PEOPLE

Monday, November 5, 2012

OWLS OUTREACH TO PEOPLE

Our project is pretty well known in the community after 8 years, and we encourage and make room every season to have people attend field trips and other events to come see the adorable saw-whet. Scheduling can be tricky with training new volunteers our owl protocol, inclement weather cancellations and banding only 5 nights/week for 5 weeks! This season alone we've great nights with the following groups and events plus several other guests not included in the following:
Donations Events
Candles in the Canyon winners
Snow Goose Festival winners
Alzheimer's Fundraiser
Field Trips
Sacramento Audubon
Owloween
BCCER (2 groups)

The amazement on people's faces is obvious when a saw-whet is extracted gently from the nets or a bag for processing. The saw-whets make good candidates for showing the public due to their mostly mellow nature and tolerance for handling. Often they seem as curious about us as we are them. Check out some of our happy guests!

Sacramento Audubon Group

Guest of
Candles in the Canyon winner

BCCER outing - the owls can be calmed
when gently stroking their forehead

BCCER outing happy guest!

Lucky Owloween Group - Altacal Audubon Society and volunteers

Early to bed Owloween boys, still got to see
an owl - and adopted her through our Adopt-an-Owl program!

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Our Supporters

Every great program needs some great sponsors! Aside from abundant volunteer hours, annual funding is necessary for running the project, equipment, and maintenance of sites. Our partners include:

Altacal Audubon Society- Bander Support, Adopt an Owl and Adopt a Box program and some amazing volunteers (see below).

CSU Chico Research Foundation - funded the seasonal running of the program 2010-2012.

Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve - contributing to onsite maintenance of the owl stations and equipment needs.

Private sponsors whose contributions are necessary and appreciated include:

Butte Creek Foundation - $5000

Howard Wurlitzer - $3000

Mary Lou Martin - $300 to kick off the

Adopt-an-Owl program

Adopt an Owl Supporters - $2500(and increasing!)

Sacramento Audubon Society

Central Valley Bird Club members

Bob and Marilyn Alber

Katherine Garcia (thanks mom!)

Dorthy Davis and her fabulous painting donation

Wyatt Hersey and his great t-shirt design

Meet Ken Sobon

Ken is an avid birder, field trip leader and Vice President for Altacal Audubon Society. In 2020, he received his Master Bander Permit to have oversight of the all aspects of the project. He has volunteered with the owl project for seven seasons and beginning in fall 2017, he took on the program as Director with Julie Newman. In spring 2017 he added a new component to our program - nest boxes!, to determine if NSWO might be nesting on the Reserve. He will monitor the boxes each spring. Ken is also a science teacher for middle school kids in Oroville, California and enjoys sharing science and his love of birds with his students in the classroom and field since 1995.

NSWO Project Founder and Director 2005-2016, Birdbling Founder and Blogger!

Night Owl? Not really. But I am interested in feathered critters of the night ever since working my first job with the Northern Spotted Owl in Washington State - 1989! I am a birder, bird bander, biologist and conservationist; a complete fan of the avian taxa, love birds, especially songbirds. I am very concerned about the plight of birds and our anthropogenic impacts in the landscape (buildings, communication towers, habitat fragmentation, toxins, etc) and also the impacts that climate change will have. As a bird bander, I attempt to understand the demographics of local and migratory populations, productivity and survivorship of owls and songbirds. I always make sure that bird safety is top priority, striving to cause the least stress possible when handling birds. I have a phenomenal crew of volunteers whose philosophies agree with mine. We respect our nonhuman friends and endeavor to protect the habitats where they live on this earth.

Meet Julie Woodruff

Julie now runs her own station in the Oakland area, but prior: "Julie is an active volunteer in our banding program. We met when she joined the CSU Chico grad program in 2010 and was interested in studying Saw-whet Owls. We developed a great telemetry project based on the fall monitoring program: studying the winter roost selections and characteristics of the owls. She is also collecting pellets from the birds roosts and determining their winter prey. See more of Julie's project in our January 2011 blog posts."

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Monday, November 5, 2012

OWLS OUTREACH TO PEOPLE

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