Happy OWLOWEEN 2013 - BOO!

One of my most fun owl events is the ever popular and scary OWLOWEEN. This time it was a surprise for our guests - Sacramento Audubon Society (SAS). And this is what it looked like:  Awesome banding crew, 11 participants and 2 NSWO, bringing us up to for the season as of October 26. A very slow year,good thing we know how to have some fun!

Our Owloween group with curious NSWO

We also heard N. Pygmy Owl, Western Screech Owl and Great  Horned owl AND some strange sounds we could not identify. Pair the  wildlife with lots of spooky tricks and treats - a successful night!  

Trick or Treat Table

Delicious ghoulish cupcakes! 

Creepy Grave on the way to the nets

Thank you SAS for your generous donation to help support our owl monitoring project!

Hatch year  Female, NSWO, Photo by Linda Pittman (SAS)

OWL Donations Bring Success!

Incoming!  Our fall population of NSWO was in perfect arrival timing with our first charitable contribution. Julie and Mark, winners of our "Owl Night Out" contribution to raise funding for student research (Candles in the Canyon-BCCER), were joyful about meeting our first two NSWO since opening on October 4. Banders Julie Shaw and Raina and Steve King introduced our project to the group and had a great evening (thanks!), we always enjoy showing people the darling owl that may live right in their backyard- sight unseen.

Candles in the Canyon 2013 Donation Winners - Owl What a Night!
All photos by Steve King.

"Pleased to meet you," owl guest and NSWO

Bling! Julie's glittery nail polish coordinated
with NSWO plumage. Nice Julie! 

We have been wondering when the owls would arrive.  The mild temps may be keeping them up in the mountains where there could still be warm days, snow-less grounds for hunting, and abundant prey or maybe they were just waiting for a charity event!  This brings our owl total up to 4 NSWO and 4 WESO (see earlier post). We have another event tonight - keep your fingers crossed XXXX

NSWO - Halting to a SCREECH

Our owl of October 2013 is undoubtedly the Western Screech Owl, having so far, captured four of them and only two saw-whets.  Screech Owls are resident birds, breeding on the Reserve and living here year round.
  

Guest with 5-year old Western Screech Owl

They are likely curious about whooooo has come to their forest and are often incidentally caught in our nets when we are playing the saw-whet calls. We captured our first one last week, and then another 3 in one night! One female was a recapture who was originally banded in October, 2008.  Recaptures relay great stories, such as a birds' age, she being at least 5 years old.  Their memory also must be quite good, taking her a full five years to revisit her experience in the nets! Our grand total so far: 2 NSWO and 4 WESO. Where are the saw-whets?!

SEASON NINE NSWO MONITORING KICK-OFF AT BCCER, A SWEET SURPRISE!

Juvenile/hatch year saw-whet. Note dark brown plumage
and buff belly, with few bars and spots.
Photos by Steve King.

Hello young saw-whet! Last night during the kick-off to our 9th season of owl monitoring, we had a nice surprise in our nets; a first year female with about 2/3 of her body covered in juvenal plumage. These are the wispy more unstructured feathers found everywhere but on the tail and wings (flight feathers). The flight feathers were typical of a first year bird (hatch year, HY), all uniform in pattern and age because they grow in at the same time.

Note wispy feathers typical of juvenal plumage
and darker, more uniform coloration.

In comparison and below, this bird has molted into adult type plumage,and right is a webphoto of a newly fledged saw-whet. Our first capture above had a combination of both plumages. Go to this link for a really cute video of nestlings.

Plumage of a typical "adult-type" saw-whet,
lighter with more patterning: spots and bars

Why is this so exciting?  A banding resource (Pyle 1997) describes juvenal plumage from May through September, meaning that most birds in October would have their first basic (adult-type) plumage.  I know that to be true because it is only the second bird in this plumage that I have captured of over 600 owls. And I think it could indicate that we have local and late breeding-perhaps even a second clutch for a local nesting pair. How local? That's hard to say. In our few summer surveys, we have not detected breeders at the BCCER. But attempts have been few and these owls are variable in their nesting locations. Always more questions! Anyway here's the team- we are off to a good start with two owls this first banding night.Thanks team!

The 2013 NSWO banding team with our first owl of the year, from front left to right:
Sheila, Julie, Shannon, me, JoAnna, Nancy, Raina and Tyler.
And of course Steve is behind the camera- thanks Steve!

A Student of the Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School Adopts an Owl!

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE

 

 Sophie P, a student from the Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School (HSCS) has adopted an owl! After successfully completing exams about owls, and in particular our research with Saw-whets,  Sophie was awarded with a Saw-whet Owl Adoption.  

Sophie P. using her quill pen to
complete a homework assignment

Sophie recently received her adoption certificate and became a guardian of this after hatch year female owl originally banded in 2006.    Thank you for your support Sophie and good luck with your studies!

Star Parties and Spring Sampling

Based on our random banding efforts, spring migration is variable and unpredictable as to timing and location of owls moving out of the area. Knowing that we might not detect owls is not much of an incentive to get out there!  But when there are curious people and a possibility of meeting an owl, it's a good excuse to give it a try.  This night my friend's niece, nephew and sister visiting from Texas wanted to see a saw-whet. They had supported our adopt-an-owl program, how could I say no? We set up at the Butte Creek Ecological Preserve station on March 14, 2013. Our 1.5 hours of effort produced no saw-whets, not even a toot. But, as fortune would have it, we captured a Western Screech Owl, potentially the mate of the screech owl we captured at the 2013 snow goose festival event.

The family meeting their first Western Screech Owl, just before release.
Note the excitement and smiles the little owl elicits! Photo by Carolyn Short.

Our next spring sampling event occurred during CSU Chico Reserve's spring naturalist outing "Owls and Astronomy" field trip with star-man David Samuels. We met David on March 16 2013,at the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve. He was equipped with 3 large scopes set up in the meadow near our OWL3 station. David educated and entertained us with his amazing knowledge of  planets, stars, nebulas, galaxies  constellations and other heavenly bodies. 

David Samuels weaving the myth surrounding the constellation Ursa Major

My favorite scope view was the Orion Nebula. In David's scope it did not have the color like the web picture below, but it was ethereal and lovely, clouds, space and stars. For star-gazing it was a wonderful evening!

Wikipedia photo of the Orion Nebula seen in the belt of the constellation Orion

Although no saw-whets were detected or captured, the combo trip was an ingenious way to introduce participants to night-time phenomena. The owl team gleaned more data for our spring migration sampling; no detections could mean owls have already moved on from their wintering grounds to their breeding grounds. 

SNOW GOOSE FESTIVAL OWL CAPTURES AND THE MOON

Last post I questioned if owl captures could be related to moon phase.  Literature from back east where the majority of owls are says yes, they are.

Web photo, Northern Saw-whet Owl and the Moon

Theory has it that if the moon is bright, the small owls may not be as active because they may become prey instead of predator. Big owls, like the Great Horned will predate the Saw-whet. Where Barred Owls are present, netters have quite a challenge keeping them away from nets set during Saw-whet monitoring - the Barreds react to the Saw-whet call as though it were a dinner bell. Fortunately at our current sites we don't have to worry about Barred Owls-yet!

Another theory is that the owls can see the net array when the moon is bright. Indeed we can sometimes walk to the nets and not even need headlamps, so we figure if we can see the nets shimmering under moonlight, then certainly the nocturnal eye can.

Because our owl captures are relatively low (a small sample size) during the Snow Goose Festival, I graphed the outcome, owl captures vs. moon phase. Here's what that looks like (two of the data-points are missing the moon phase graphic-but you get the picture).  The graph shows the number of owls captured on the primary Y axis (left), the % moon phase on the secondary Y axis (right side) and the date of capture on the X axis. You can see during the brightest moon we do catch fewer Saw-whets, by one per/effort.  On our last night in 2013, we caught a Western Screech Owl at BCEP, and a Saw-whet at BCCER, so only one owl per site. Interestingly two of our three owl captures on full moon nights were Western Screech Owls. Using this small data set, we would have a higher likelihood of capturing any Saw-whets in the area during Snow Goose Festival on a no moon night. That makes sense with the given theories.