Several of us met at the Butte Creek Ecological Reserve (BCEP) to conduct a second sampling of wintering saw-whets in this area. In January 2011 we banded 6 NSWO, a record for this location in winter. Under a 1/2 moon and a starry night sky we sat listening to flocks of snow geese and tundra swans, canada and white-fronted geese, and a saw the dark silhouette of a great horned owl over our heads. We heard only a few saw-whet owl vocalizations and recaptured a bird of unknown sex (wing/mass measurements in the M/F overlap range) banded in January 2011, and one new Second Year female, her cuteness captured (above) by Steve King.
The following images/photo shows an aerial view/on the ground habitat of where we set up our nets at BCEP. Click on the image for a closer view of our net array.
