The fall owl banding began the night of Sept. 15 with four Northern Saw-whet Owls banded — a nice start to the season. Since then, only two Northern Saw-whet Owls have been banded, for a first week total of six. This can likely be attributed to the south winds that have been prevalent the [...]
WPBO's third Ash-throated Flycatcher I'm just going to start by acknowledging that flipping my schedule from night to day, plus some technical issues on my part has me playing catch up on blogging. There's nothing for it at this point but to just jump in. There have already been some exciting vagrants this [...]
Waterbird Highlights: During this week’s count (Sept. 10–16), the count had 50 species of waterbirds, and 19 of these species were shorebirds! A Buff-breasted Sandpiper still managed to make an appearance throughout the count while intermixed between other Calidris shorebirds. One of the final birds for the count this week was a fantastic stopover of a Stilt Sandpiper in the [...]
Waterbird Highlights: During this week’s count (Sept. 3–9), the count had 42 species of waterbirds! Aug. 5 was an exciting day where we had 32 of the 42 species of waterbirds seen during the count. There were quite a few highlights that day, such as large numbers of Pluvialis plovers (Black-bellied/golden-plover sp.), several Black [...]
Waterbird Highlights: This week (Aug. 28–Sept. 2), 36 species (+1 other taxa) of waterbirds have passed by the Point. If you have been keeping up with Dunkadoo numbers, you are probably wondering where all the Red-necked Grebes are! We are wondering the same thing. This time last year, there had already been over 5,000 individuals; this [...]
It’s that time of year again where we waterbird counters set out to the Point prepared to count the fall waterbird migration. As you may have seen in our recent social media posting, I (Mario) will be your guide during this fall adventure. This will be my first time working and living in the [...]
Although we continue to see a general slow down, we did band 24 juvenile Northern Saw-whet Owls on August 11, which is a productive mid-August night. More recently, a warm-weather system has settled over us, and the numbers have been dropping night by night. The forecast calls for this system to linger a few [...]
We experienced the first real slow down of the summer this past week, including our first night with no owls. It's not unexpected for the owls to slow down significantly at this time of the year. However, the weather conditions have not been good recently, leaving us wondering if the migration is winding down [...]
Varying weather conditions have created some stops and starts to the owl migration recently, but overall it was another productive week. The few adults we are still catching are in various stages of molt. The one pictured in this blog has dropped its tail feathers. You can see the fluffy, white undertail coverts poking [...]
It's 7 or 8 p.m., and I'm listening to the sound of my hiking boots crunch against the rocks and sand with every step. The sky is showing its characteristic amber glow, a trait which the slowly churning lake water reflects eagerly, creating the illusion of a softly glowing Lake Superior. Though this short walk [...]
