OWL MONITORING IN THE WIND - SGF 2014 RESULTS

Our owl monitoring outings for the Chico Snow Goose Festival (SGF) include banding at the BCEP and BCCER stations. They are a perfect way to see what the owls are doing in the winter, and introduce people from all over the country, to the saw-whet owl. Due to the popularity of the adorable owl, these two events are always a quick sell-out. This season our outings happened to be set on the windiest night of the year-gusting to 29 mph! High winds and rain would usually make us cancel banding for bird safety purposes.

BCCER Owl Monitoring with banders Julie Shaw, Mike Fisher,
Nancy Nelson and Sheila Frisk, plus Snow Goose Festival
participants, 2014-happy!

But the participants were excited to be out at night and see if they could detect the resident possible owl species for the habitat, Northern Pygmy, Western Screech, Great Horned and N. Saw-whet. After the owl prowl, a couple of nets were set to demonstrate the mist-netting process. BCEP banders were Raina and Steve King, Tyler Price and Maureen Morales (BCCER banders mentioned in pic). Results for both sites - 0 detections, 0 captures. When there are no owls to engage the participants, the banding teams really have to shine, sharing their knowledge and good story or a good joke! Thank you owl banding teams for another successful SGF!