Two fairly decent nights in a row; a few owls showed up.

Sat, Sep 9: Two hatch-year Northern Saw-whet Owls  and one hatch-year Boreal Owl were banded.

Fri, Sep 8: Three Northern Saw-whets were caught; two were new and one was a recapture of an owl banded in Sep 2016 as a hatch-year. The recapture was the first for this season. Rain moved in around midnight and ended the effort.

Thanks to Andrew Fisher for making the drive down from Anchorage and helping out these two nights!

A few of Andrew’s photos:

Andrew with Boreal Owl

Andrew with Norther Saw-whet Owl

Sep 7 seemed like a good  night, but no owls were banded.  A Saw-whet could be heard in the distance, and there were a couple of barks from the trees near the nets, but no luck catching them.

Sep 6: Three hatch-year Northern Saw-whets were banded.  Nets were open for three hours.

Three hatch-year Northern Saw-whets were banded last night, bringing the season total to 8 so far.  Nets were open for 4 hours (10pm-2am).

My new nets arrived from Avinet today, so some work was done on the setup.  Two of my old nets were full of repaired holes and trammels, so a couple of new nets makes a nice improvement.

The rain finally cleared; this was the first clear night in about a week.  Feeling like summer’s almost over with temperatures in the low 40’s.

One hatch-year Northern Saw-whet was banded, bringing the season total to 5.

Two hatch-year Northern Saw-whets were banded on Aug 27.  Nets were open for 2.5 hours.
The following week was full of rain; nets weren’t opened.