Sep 12: No banding tonight due to rain.
Sep 11: Five new Northern Saw-whet Owls were banded, all hatch-year. Additionally, one Saw-whet was recaptured; it was first banded here in Sep 2014.
Sep 10: Two Northern Saw-whet Owls were banded. Despite ideal conditions, no owls were caught until the last net check at about 12:30am, when these two arrived.
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.
Things started picking up a bit last night.
Six owls were banded: four hatch-year Northern Saw-whets and two hatch-year Boreal Owls.
The Boreals were the first for this season. Only three Boreals were banded during Fall 2016 (down considerably from previous years), so this is a good start.
Boreal Owl banded on Sep 4, 2017
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.
After too much rain over the last week, nets were finally set up yesterday and the season’s first two Northern Saw-whets were banded last night. Both were hatch-year birds; one female and one male.
I don’t yet have all of the nets set up; I’m waiting on a new net order to arrive (sometime this week). But I have the net that is usually the most productive set up (a 9M net facing a stand of spruce). I’ve also added another 12M net in a new position this season, and it caught one of last night’s two owls.
The 2016 owl banding season here ended on Oct 31.
2016 turned out to be a very average season; a total of 135 owls were banded.
Totals:
Northern Saw-whet Owl: 132
Boreal Owl: 3
Recaptures from previous years: 2 (both Saw-whets)
The Boreal Owl numbers are the lowest seen in eight years (down from a high of 56 in 2011).
Totals for the season can be seen to the right. Comparisons with previous years can be seen here.
Slow going, one or two owls per night on nights that I could open; lots of bad weather for banding lately. I plan to close down the daily banding effort at the end of the month, although I might open nets a few times for the first couple of weeks in November.
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