We’ve had a very slow start of the Fall 2025 owl banding effort.
Two weeks in, a total of 17 Northern Saw-whet Owls have been banded- all hatch-year birds except for 3 second-year adults.
Rain almost every night has limited the effort so far; After days of rain, we finally had good weather last night (Sep 17) and banded 5 birds.
First Northern Saw-whet banded during the Fall 2025 effort
An audio lure for owl banding can be constructed from a few inexpensive / commonly-available parts. For this lure, I am using a small MP3 player module with a built-in amplifier; this module can play files directly off of USB flash drives or micro-SD cards.
All it needs is connection of a power source and a speaker.
There are many variations of this kind of MP3 player module availalble. I chose this one due to the larger built-in amplifier and an actual knob for power/volume (most use buttons); the analog volume control is just a personal preference.
In the past I’ve used heavy SLA (sealed lead acid) batteries in this kind of lure. But recently I’ve switched to using off-the-shelf Lithium Ion power banks combined with USBC PD adapters that provide 12VDC. These power banks can be swapped out quickly and charged with standard USBC chargers.
The speaker is an outdoor waterproof deck horn. The whole assembly is mounted in an old waterproof Pelican case (which is no longer waterproof due to all of the holes I’ve drilled in it over the course of many audio lure variations).
A list of parts with product links is included at the end of this post; all of these parts are only examples.
The MP3 player module includes wire pigtails for connection of power and two speakers (stereo output). I’m only using one speaker here but this system could be expanded to drive two speakers.
Power is provided to the MP3 module by means of a 12VDC USB-C PD adapter cable.
This cable has a USBC connector on one end and a barrel plug on the other end.
To make the connection to the MP3 module’s power wires, a spring-terminal barrel jack is an easy solution. These barrel jacks are also available with screw or solder terminals.
Alternately, the barrel plug on the adapter cable could be cut off and the wires spliced with wire nuts, solder, WAGO connectors, etc.
The audio lure file (mp3) is saved on a MicroSD card and inserted into the ‘TF Card’ slot on the player:
Components used above:
Amazon links provided but all of these parts are available from many sources.
| Component | Sources |
|---|---|
| MP3 player module | https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Amplifier-Decoder-Microphone-Player/dp/B0DRX5VP5B |
| Deck horn speaker | https://www.amazon.com/Indoor-Outdoor-Horn-Speaker-Impedance/dp/B002UL0WH8 |
| USBC-PD 12V power cable | https://www.amazon.com/HSZJsto-5-5mm-Charging-Charger-Output/dp/B0CBNQN7CR |
| Spring terminal barrel jack | https://www.amazon.com/JacobsParts-Barrel-Screw-Connector-Electronics/dp/B01NAYPUAY?th=1 |
| USBC PD power bank | Many possibilities; this is the bank used above: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Portable-Charger-Compatible/dp/B09VPHVT2Z |
May/June 2025: One of the local owl nest boxes gained a resident.
Seven eggs were laid, but only one hatched.
This last week in September is usually the peak of the season here. Despite lots of rained-out nights, we’ve had a few good nights over the last week. 19 Northern Saw-whets banded tonight so far, and 4-8 owls banded most nights over the last week.
Two Boreal Owls have been banded so far, which is up from last year (only one banded), but far from years like 2011 (56 Boreals banded) or 2017 (48 Boreals banded). Boreals tend to come later in the season, so more might be on their way.
Totals for the season so far:
| Species | new | recap | Foreign recap |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSWO | 96 | 3 | 1 |
| BOOW | 2 | | |
| WESO | | | |
| TOTALS | 98 | 3 | 1 |
After 15 years, we finally caught our first owl that was banded somewhere else.
This hatch-year Northern Saw-whet was originally banded in Anchorage. It was banded in a nest box in Forsythe Park in May 2024.
Banding totals as of Sep 16:
| Species | new | recap | Foreign recap |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSWO | 31 | 2 | 1 |
There have been quite a few rained-out nights so far this season; hopefully conditions improve.
At the suggestion of a couple of friends, I finally scraped together enough parts from the junk drawer to put together a BirdNET-PI system. This is a Tensorflow-based machine learning system that listens to the audio stream from an outdoor microphone and can identify over 6000 species. A station can be set up inexpensively; all that is needed for a minimal system is a Raspberry Pi board and an outdoor microphone.
This new station’s results can be seen on Birdweather:
https://app.birdweather.com/stations/7366
The results are pretty impressive so far, although I’ve seen a few false detections- the local squirrels are being detected as Belted Kingfishers.
The system is configured to ignore detections of Northern Saw-whet Owl, Boreal Owl, and Western Screech-owl for now since the owl banding operation uses audio lures of those species- no need to pollute the BirdNET results with our lure playback.
Owl banding time again.
The owl banding station here in Homer, Alaska was set up during the last week of August. Same small setup as previous years- four nets total.
We’ve opened nets eight nights starting August 22, and we’ve been rained out six nights so far.
As of Sep 8, we’ve banded 15 hatch-year Northern Saw-whet Owls.
We’re approaching the end of the owl banding season and things are slowing down here. It’s been below freezing for the last several nights. I’m seeing at most 1-2 owls per night now.
Totals for the season so far:
| Species | New bands | Recaptures | Total |
| Northern Saw-whet Owl | 119 | 2 | 121 |
| Boreal Owl | 1 | 1 | |
| Total | 120 | 2 | 122 |
As of Oct 1, banding totals are as follows:
| Species | New bands | Recaptures |
| Northern Saw-whet Owl | 88 | 2 |
| Boreal Owl | 1 |
Two previously-banded Northern Saw-whets were captured; both were banded here in previous years- one originally banded in 2020, and one in 2022.
The season’s first Boreal Owl showed up on Sep 21.
Owl banding has started a bit late here in Homer, AK this year. The nets are usually set up during the last week in August, but near-continuous bad weather delayed things. Nets were finally set up on Sep 1, and banding efforts started on Sep 2.
As of tonight (Sep 11), 24 Northern Saw-whets have been banded- all hatch-year birds.
After a few nights of banding, this location’s 2000th Northern Saw-whet Owl was banded.
We almost hit #2000 the previous night, but one hold-out preferred to watch the proceedings from the trees instead.
Banding will continue through the end of October; I try to open nets every night that weather permits.
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