Owl Banding

Not surprisingly, the owl migration has been winding down in recent nights. For the first time since April 16, we did not band any Long-eared Owls on May 21. In fact, we did not band any May 21-23. However, we did band two last night. Hopefully, we’ll get a couple more long-eareds this season, [...]

Although it appears that the Long-eared Owl migration has begun to slow down, we had another productive week. We banded another 118 owls over the last seven nights; 78 Northern Saw-whet Owls, 36 Long-eared Owls, three Barred Owls, and what is likely the last Boreal Owl of the season. Additionally, we caught seven previously-banded [...]

We experienced another fairly productive owl migration this past week. We banded 110 owls, including 58 Northern Saw-whet Owls, which has us currently at 300 saw-whets banded for the season. We banded 46 more Long-eared Owls, which has us at 194 Long-eared Owls for the season. Unfortunately, no Boreal Owls were banded this past [...]

We finally had a calm weather week, and the owl migration continued to be relatively productive. We banded 106 owls over the last seven nights, highlighted by another six Boreal Owls and 65 more Long-eared Owls. It's become apparent that Northern Saw-whet Owls are at a low point in their cycle this spring, but [...]

This week was unexpectedly productive after experiencing a particularly disappointing stretch of owl migration prior to our last blog post. As we looked at the extended weather forecast as we wrote last week’s blog, it looked like we would be lucky to get even one night of banding in this past week. Not only [...]

Well, there's no real reason to sugarcoat our disappointment over this past week's results. The weather is really starting to get the better of us. I don't remember a season in my previous 20 years of spring owl banding here when we had so many nights of unfavorable weather conditions at this point in [...]

We feel like we're in repeat mode every time we sit down to write a blog this spring. The weather continues to be particularly unsettled, frequently limiting our ability to open the nets. The first thunderstorm of the year is currently passing over the Point as we write this. The first decent push of [...]

The unsettled weather continues to be of significant negative impact on the season, but we have again seen little signs of hope since our last post. This past week we banded another 29 Northern Saw-whet Owls and caught another that was previously banded. On Sunday night, we heard the first two Long-eared Owls of [...]

Ugh. Being part of the spring field staff at WPBO in March, you have to be prepared for the return of winter, assuming that winter has even shown any signs of leaving. After some signs of spring during the first week of the season, the weather this past week has been pretty brutal. Weather [...]

The owl banding season has started relatively slowly, but a significant weather system pushing up from the south produced the first little push of the season over the last two nights. To date, we have banded 37 Northern Saw-whet Owls and caught three previously banded saw-whets. ~ Chris Neri & Nova Mackentley 2022 WPBO [...]