Autumn has officially begun, and with the days now shorter than nights, an increasing diversity of waterbirds are headed to their wintering grounds. Though the number of dabbling ducks is dwindling, a bump in divers has given the WPBO fall migration count plenty of action. Aythya ducks have arrived, with a total of 397 unidentified [...]
Despite a strong headwind both days, thousands of waterbirds migrated past Whitefish Point on Tuesday and Wednesday! Following several slow days of warm weather and southerly winds, I wasn’t expecting to see much migration on Tuesday as conditions were set to stay the same. The day got off to a promising start though, with a [...]
For me, the highlight of the past few days has been the shorebirds! I’ve always particularly enjoyed watching them scramble along a beach or a breakwall, even before I began to seriously tackle the notoriously difficult challenge of learning to distinguish one peep from the next. Today I finally caught up with one of my [...]
One incredible aspect of fall migration here at Whitefish Point that makes it so unique is the annual passage of thousands of Red-necked Grebes. According to Behrens and Cox’s Seawatching: Eastern waterbirds in flight, the Point “is the best site in North America for Red-necked Grebe, with numbers that dwarf those counted at all other [...]
As we approach the end of the summer owl banding season, things have remained relatively slow, but fairly steady. We had begun to wonder if the owls were going to trickle down to the end of their summer movements when the night of the 18th produced a pretty unexpected surprise. We banded six Saw-whets, five [...]
It’s hard to believe summer in the UP is already winding down, and fall migrants are here! It seems like just the other day that a Mississippi Kite zipped by me on the final weekend of the spring hawk count. In fact, for some species fall migration has been well underway for some time. Though [...]
We unfortunately don't have a whole lot to report. As expected, this has proven to be a down reproductive year for Northern Saw-whet Owls and they have been very slow recently. The adult Saw-whets came to a screeching halt on July 18. Juvenile Saw-whets have continued, but at a trickle. Thankfully, we are also catching [...]
As we expected, this summer is proving to be a low year in Northern Saw-whet Owl reproduction. Last summer was the third time we experienced a peak in juvenile Saw-whet numbers since beginning the summer research in 2006. Both of the previous peak years were followed immediately by low years, so Ryan Steiner & I [...]
Things have been pretty slow since the last post. We've been able to band every night so far this season and have banded a total of 41 Northern Saw-whets, 29 adults and 12 juveniles. The seven nights since our last post have produced 9 adults and 6 juveniles. Given we don't have much to share [...]
Juvenile Northern Saw-whet Owl We began the 13th year of WPBO's summer owl research on July 1 and the season has gotten of to a modest start. We've been able to run nets every night so far and have banded 26 Northern Saw-whets and also captured two that were previously banded. Six of [...]
