Spring Owl Banding 2020 Begins

The start of the season is always an exciting time, but we have to admit that when mid-March still feels like the dead of winter our enthusiasm is affected. Thankfully, conditions are not too bad this year and by mid-February we were already looking forward to the season. As per usual, there is still several feet of snow in some areas of the net lanes, but other areas are down to just a few inches, giving us some hope that we will be off our snowshoes by mid to late-April. More importantly, Northern Saw-whets have begun moving north. With a few hours left in our fourth night, we have banded 39 Saw-whets and captured three that were previously banded. It’s way too early in the season to make anything out of these results, but it is our best start since 2012, which has us in good spirits.

If you have not seen the postings about some of the changes WPBO is being forced to make due to covid-19, the owl banding is currently not open to the public. We hope that we will be able to open the door for visitors again sometime in May, but like so many things right now, only time will tell.