Owl Banding

The transition we often see at this time of the year, when juvenile Northern Saw-whet Owl (NSWO) numbers increase and adult NSWO numbers decrease, took place this past week. Since our last post, we have banded 59 juvenile and 12 adult NSWO. Tonight the total number of juveniles banded this summer surpassed the number [...]

Although the recent nights did not produce more surprises this week, the owls have remained relatively steady. We've been able to open all 13 nights of the season so far and have banded one Great Horned Owl, three Long-eared Owls, and 100 Northern Saw-whet Owls. We're starting to see the juvenile saw-whet numbers pick [...]

It has been an eventful start to the summer owl banding season. Most notably, we banded a Great Horned Owl on July 3. Not only is this the first great horned to be banded during the summer research, we had not even seen or heard one during the summer since we started in 2006. [...]

It’s hard to believe how quickly the end of the season is approaching. Field seasons often have a weird time warp to them. It can feel like the start of the season was ages ago, while at the same time feeling like they passed in the blink of an eye. This season feels like [...]

We experienced a transition in the owl migration this past week. With the exception of a few bad weather nights that predictably shut down the owl migration last month, we banded Long-eared Owl (LEOW) every night from April 1 through May 16. Despite good conditions, we have not banded any LEOW these last two [...]

The value of any migratory bird study is not based solely on numbers, but we can’t help celebrating setting a new North American banding record for Long-eared Owls. This is not only a celebration of the success of WPBO’s owl research but also an opportunity to express how rewarding it is to document the [...]

Once again, the time between our blog posts produced a couple of productive nights before weather significantly slowed down the owl migration. The three nights after our last post produced 121 new owls, but these last three nights have produced seven. With the exception of the night of April 30, when we banded 39 [...]

We appear to be in repeat mode regarding the timing of weekly weather patterns and their effect on the owl migration between our posts. Once again, this past week started with a few productive nights before unsettled weather rolled in mid-week to slow down the owl migration. The saw-whet migration was a bit disappointing [...]

This past week started with some productive nights, but then strong north winds and periods of snow shut down the owl migration for a few nights. That said, along with more saw-whets and long-eareds, we banded the first Barred Owls and American Woodcock of the spring this week. Although the owls are our favorites, [...]

Although the pace has slowed since we had an 88 owl night on April 6, the owls have been surprisingly consistent this past week. We say surprisingly because we've experienced varying weather conditions recently, including some that are typically not productive for us. We banded another 143 owls and caught 12 more previously banded [...]