Aug 29: 5 Northern Saw-whets banded, all hatch-year, despite the bright full moon. Nets were open for 3 hours.
Aug 28: Very bright moon; nets open for 2 hours, no owls banded.
Aug 27: Too windy to open the nets.
Aug 26: Nets open for 2.5 hours, but conditions weren’t good- too windy and too much moonlight.
Three new Northern Saw-whets banded on the night of Aug 25. All three were hatch-year birds.
A fourth owl was caught; this one had been banded five days ago.
The nets were open for 2 hours and were closed at 12:15AM due to a cat in the area.
Banding results for Aug 21-24:
Aug 21: 1 Northern Saw-whet (hatch-year) banded.
Aug 22: 2 Northern Saw-whets (both hatch-year) banded. Nice aurora display around 2AM.
Aug 23: 1 Northern Saw-whet (hatch-year) banded.
Aug 24: 5 Northern Saw-whets (hatch-year) banded.
Eight more hatch-year Northern Saw-whets were banded last night; nets were open for 2.75 hours.
The first night with the nets open resulted in 9 Northern Saw-whets banded. All 9 were hatch-year birds, many with pin feathers evident on the feet / legs. Nets were open for 2.5 hours.
It’s almost time to start banding owls again. I typically start banding during the last week in August.
Today I got the central triangle of nets set up, with the usual hassle of trying to set up nets interleaved on one pole while working alone. Fortunately I still had three good 9M nets from last year, although I’ll probably have to buy a couple of 12M for the rest of the setup.
The audio lure needed a bit of work as well; the SLA battery should have been put on the charger since last season but it wasn’t, so I had to replace the battery.
I’ve opened the nets up tonight for a trial run.