Snow Goose Festival Outing 2012 - Owl Success!

Every season for the Snow Goose Festival we offer our Northern Saw-whet Owl banding and survey. It is always a sell out and this year was no different. The late January date (26) also allows us to see if we continue to have wintering saw-whets on the Reserve. We always start off with an owl prowl to survey the other species in the area. This year we had the resident pair of Great Horned Owls, putting on a nice vocal show of dueting.

As in most raptors the female is bigger than the male, but in the owls, the female has a higher pitched voice, making a nice auditory duet of high (female) and low (male) responses. I love this picture from the web showing the size difference, although these birds are much lighter in color than the Reserve pair. We also had a Western Screech Owl calling in the fog, very close over our heads with only nearby trees visible - very dramatic! Saw-whets were calling vocalizations that we describe as banshee wails, chitters and squirrel chirps. It was a very active night for our participants ears!

Our most exciting moment though was on the very last net run of the night - when two Saw-whet owls (seen in this pic held by me and Raina) flew into the nets, one right in front of our guests. We were all very awed as usual by the beauty of the little predators, and ended the night knowing that indeed, two new owls (previously unbanded) were wintering on the Reserve. Of course it is unknown to us if these owls have been here since fall migration and avoided the nets, or came in later, after our migration station had closed for the season. Another mystery!

Thank you Steve and Raina King and Nancy Nelson for helping with another successful owl adventure!

OWL FANS!

Our banding crew loves to bring visitors to our owl station, particularly children. They are so excited to be out in the night, to walk through the woods with a headlamp and to meet their neighbors of the night- the owls! When we talk about the ecological value of owls, they get it. Here are two of our happy young visitors,

an owl they met,

and examples of thank yous that we receive from very happy kids. I love their excitement about the night, and you can read that we do sometimes provide treats - in this case jelly belly beans which made one guest, Maile, very happy!

I love this drawing of us checking the nets with our headlamps and finding an owl (in blue) in the nets-always a great surprise!

Our Foreign Recovery - A Montana Girl!

My previous post tells about Lola, a foreign recovery of unknown origin. It turns out after we queried our way through the western states, we found that she was originally banded in the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana (!) by researchers at the Owl Research Institute. Her original band date was September 28, 2011,where she weighed in at 93.0 grams. On November 2, 2011 at our banding site OWL2, she was 91 grams. This two year old lady did some traveling; approximately 600 miles in 35 days. Check out this map of her approximate original banding location to our site.

Wouldn't it be great to know where she stopped in between, and where she was hatched-she could be Canadian! We still are not sure if she was banded during a migration monitoring effort (but likely since it was late September) or for some other research project. More to come - stay tuned!!!

End of Season Results are IN!!!

While we are always excited about beginning our migration monitoring season, we are also excited to complete the season, to see what the population of saw-whets looked like this year and how it compares to others. This season, our 7th year of monitoring, we had another outstanding fall, banding 90 saw-whets! We also had our very first ever foreign recovery. This means that some other banding station banded the bird, and she was recaptured at our station. This picture of our foreign recovery we named Lola, was taken by saw-whet owl researcher Julie Shaw, after we fit her with a radio transmitter to follow her movements. Although this photo makes Lola appear angry, the elongated, slimming posture is also a cryptic behavior (although she might have been a little peeved that she was found during the day on her roost!).

While currently we don't know where she was originally banded, we should early 2012 after all banding data is submitted to the Bird Banding Laboratory.

But back to our usual excitement! During the fall 2011 season we captured and banded 90 owls. An examination of the population is dominated by adults (51, those hatched in 2010 or earlier) with only 39 hatch year birds (those hatched in 2011). This ratio of adult to young birds indicates good survivabilty of adult owls, and perhaps a lower productivity or a lower survival of young birds. Next posting I will compare these numbers to 2010 owls.

OWLOWEEN - A night of Ghosts and Owls

One of our most fun and popular evenings during the owl season is Altacal's OWLOWEEN field trip where we play tricks, provide treats and teach people about our Northern Saw-whet Owl migration monitoring study. Here's how it went last night. After Steve King picked up 10 guests to bring to the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve - our banding site OWL2, we tried to conjure up some of our resident owls, great horned, western screech, pygmy and even gave a few attempts for barn, barred and spotted. Our witchcraft was limited we had responses from two pygmy owls and later heard a chirping Northern saw-whet owl. We walked through the twilight to the Lucas cemetery, where I told the story of the raven-haired beauty, Mona Mora Lucas whose body was found beheaded near our banding station. Every year we hear the sad cries and moans of her unsettled spirit- her head has never been found.

We ended up at the banding station to meet Raina and Colleen and watch the banding and release process. On our way to check the nets, we did see Mona's head and heard her tortured cries. Haunted spirits often hang out together, and goblins, ghosts and ghouls appeared around every tree, phantoms in the night.

Then - the owls descended! We brought to the station our first owl, then a second and third. Chirps, toots and wails were heard throughout the night. Were our guests excited about these petite, enigmatic, nocturnal predators? A picture says a thousand words. Steve King captured the group's awe in this last photo. Trish, who is holding one of the owls just before we release her, is truly taken as she touches her heart in complete amazement. The owl season has been incredible this year, with a total of 8 captured this night and 66 owls for the season as of this post.

Thanks to Steve and Raina King, Colleen Martin and JoAnna Arroyo for helping to make another great OWLOWEEN outing!

What is a OWL BIG NIGHT!?

Well truly it depends on your location, because other stations have posted some incredible numbers (I will post about these later). For us at the BCCER we just had a BIG owl night on October 25, when a whopping 9 saw-whets were banded and released. Nice work Raina and Steve (with Steve's mom and saw-whet in photo below- the three Kings :)

This wasn't the biggest BIG night for us though - previous happenings occurred during our first year in 2005, on October 29th when 10 owls were captured and and again on November 4th 2007 when we banded 12 new owls and had 2 recaptures. Big owl nights are very exciting for us as it holds promise of a good year for owls. We always speculate on the event though, and typically fall to weather conditions like a high pressure system, waning-to-no-moon,and clear skies. These evenings are usually beautiful for star-gazing too and often accompanied by sounds of migrating geese and swans.

It could also be timing; being out on the right night when the the owls are flying through or have stopped on the Reserve to rest. But we can't know this unless we are out every night-all night during the migration period October 15-November 15. As of October 25th we are up to 34 owls for the season!

Following are the results:

Site: BCCER OWL2

Date: October 25, 2011

Weather clear: skies, gusty winds, 59*F

Net hours: 22.5

Banders/guests: Raina and Steve King, guests Kurt Geiger and children Maddie and Carter

Owls captured: 9 NSWO

Owls detected: NSWO throughout the night after the first hour

Thanks Steve King for photos.

Saw-whet Owl Season in Full Swing!

Saw-whet owl season is off to a great start with our first bird captured on Sept. 28. After 2 more attempts of nothing, the owls began to fly; as of October 22 we are up to 22 owls. Compare this to our 2009 season when we had 23 owls the entire season!

Thank you Steve King for this saw-whet photo! She can be adopted. Go to the Adopt An Owl tab for more details.

Here are the 2011 results so far:

9/28 = 1 AHY/F

10/11 = 0 owls captured

10/15 = 0 owls captured

10/17 = 2 owls captured: SY/M, HY/F

10/18 = 4 owls captured: HY/F, 2 AHY/F, HY/M

10/20 = 4 owls captured: 3 AHY/F, HY/M

10/21 = 7 owls captured: 3 AHY/F, 2 HY/F, HY/U, AHY/U

10/22 = 4 owls captured: HY/U, 3 AHY/F

HY = hatching year bird, a bird hatched in 2011

AHY = After hatch year, a bird hatched before 2011

This year so far we have a 50/50 ratio of adults to hatching year birds. We like to see a high proportion of hatching year birds which indicates a high reproductive year for the saw-whets. We will see what the rest of the season brings.