Owls in the marsh family...last weekend for public owl banding

This  owl season has been an interesting one and while we are closing in on 200 birds banded it has not been a typical season for us  and it all has to do with the weather. In the back of my mind with climate change looming this may become the new normal. First of all sawwhets migrate! While some of them linger through the winter catching mice( how I do not know) and perhaps a few birds . The majority of them migrate as far south as Alabama but the state only catches a few birds each banding season I believe hy have a high of 14 birds in a banding season. Before bob Sargeant starting trying they did not even know they had them that far south. The bulk of “our “birds that we band end up in Pennsylvania and west Virginia .

            The gas for the migration is a cold front. Cool nights make the little owls get going.^rd just the other night.

The only issue this year is that most days and nights for that matter we have been experiencing strong winds out of the south. The winds were blowing so strong on Saturday night that we were only able to catch one owl and Friday night was lost to rain. Weather conditions have certainly had an impact on the migration which is a shame because when we get good conditions we are catching a good number of owls and most of the owls that we are catching are birds that hatched this spring. Usually when there is a good hatch our numbers are very strong. Banders in the south have been paying attention to our numbers to see when it is worthwhile ot get their nets up. The migration seems to be possibly as late as three weeks. The other sign that the migration has stalled is that we are catching a large number of birds that we have banded this year a second time. We even caught a bird that we originally banded on September 23

            On a positive note we have been having record numbers of people coming out to see the owls that are proving so hard to catch. This weekend we can anticipate a packed “birdhouse” as families want to bring relatives out to see owls. The other factor that influences catching success is the moon phase. We always do best when there is no moon. The full moon seems to stop the owls moving and there is a lot of debate around this topic which I will save for another time. This weekend is the full moon so I am hoping for lots of cloud cover.  This weekend is also our last public owl banding nights.

The gate opens at 8:30 and our first net check is close to 9 30 so if you are hoping to see an owl Saturday night is your last chance. The other thing if you want to see an owl perhaps get your kids to do an owl dance before they come out to help us catch one  especially if it is a cloudless windy warm night.  Please don’t be upset with me but I am hoping for a cloudy chilly night you will to if you give a hoot!!

Here are our numbers and dates for the year

September 15                  1

18     2

21     2

22     0

23     28 plus 1 foreign retrap

24     17 plus 1 foreign retrap

25     30

26     26 plus 1 foreign retrap

27     18 plus  1 foreign retrap

30     36

October

1         13 plus 1 foreign retrap

2         5

4             4      3

5          5     7     

7             7       1     long eared owl

**** note a foreign retrap really means  the capture of a bird banded  at another location and not by us . This is the essence of what banding is all about and is super exciting to catch a bird  from another location. We know the bird caught on the night of September 23^rd was originally

banded in the spring of 2011 in northern Michigan. Saty tuned for more news about the other owls as I get the information.

Bird is the word! murph