The owl season ended for us here at Whitefish Point on the night of October 30th. Although, I am sure there will be more owls moving through the area, which is pretty frustrating considering on the night of October 29th we ended up catching 4 Boreal owls! That brings the Boreal owl season total up to 7, which is pretty remarkable since we thought we weren’t going to catch any at a certain point. Boreal Owls tend to irrupt on 4-year cycles, however it has been documented in the ‘Peterson Reference Guide to Owls’ that sometimes it can be a 5-year cycle. Their cycle is based on the population cycle of the red-backed vole (their primary diet). This year is supposed to be their 4-year cycle so it will be interesting to see how many are caught next Autumn.

 

Season totals:

NSWO-218

BDOW-13

BOOW-7

LEOW-16

Total # Owls – 254

Out of 47 nights of possible banding we were only able to open 37 of these nights and still managed to band more owls than last fall. Last fall’s total was 246. Success!

Encounters

This fall we had a total of 5 ‘Encounters’. These are owls caught that have been banded in a previous season either at WPBO or elsewhere. All encounters were Northern saw-whet owls.

3 were banded at Long Point Bird Observatory in Ontario, Canada

1 was banded in West Virginia, and

1 was banded here at WPBO!

We had another non-owl encounter, however did not have a camera to photograph this beauty. A yellow spotted salamander. It was much, much larger than any other salamander we had seen. Here is a photo that was found online of what it looked like.

Yellow-spotted Salamander

Yellow-spotted Salamander

 

It was a pleasure to meet everyone who came to see and learn a bit about owls and the research that goes on up here.

All in all we had a great season and want to thank Nova and Chris for having us and being so generous and kind. We have learned a lot, both about birds, and about being a couple. It was a really rewarding experience in all aspects and are just really grateful for this opportunity.

Owl Faces

Here are just some of the friendly owl faces we got the pleasure of meeting. They all have such different looks and personalities!

Cutest saw-whet of all time

Cutest saw-whet of all time

Long Eared Owl

Long Eared Owl

Barred Owl

Barred Owl

Boreal Owl giving us the stink eye

Boreal Owl giving us the stink eye

One of the largest saw-whets we caught!

One of the largest saw-whets we caught!

One of the largest saw-whets we caught!

One of the largest saw-whets we caught!

Saw-whet. His eyes looked so far apart

Saw-whet. His eyes looked so far apart

Boreal portrait

Boreal portrait

Boreal Owl

Boreal Owl

 

Thanks Whitefish Point. It’s been a time.

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Sun-rise, Good bye’s