Hello dear readers! It’s been an exciting week here at the field station. The Northern Saw-whet season is almost entirely over: we caught a whopping four stragglers this week. They are not the only ones either, we caught only one Long-eared Owl at the beginning of the week and we haven’t seen one since. We did catch three Barred Owls, but the REAL exciting catch of the week was a massive, gorgeous Great Horned Owl.
It’s not normal to catch an owl this large and this strong in a mist net. When we are catching these owls intentionally, they are usually drawn in with bait and captured in a bow net, like are used for large diurnal raptors. This bird was caught in a net meant for Long-Eared/ Barred Owl size birds, and this fellow was TWICE as heavy as our average BADO and three times as heavy as our LEOW!
This was an older bird, as demonstrated by the different generations of feathers in the above photo. The first three primaries are paler and more worn, while P7 is darker and less ratty. This is a newer feather. The same contrast in appearance can be observed between the rest of the primaries, and the secondaries.
We had another group of interested community members come out on Saturday to enjoy a campfire and to watch us band. Given the fact we had caught so few owls we were worried they might have come all the way out for nothing. Fortunately, on the second net run, we caught a young Barred owl who came into the Saw-whet caller. We love going over the unique features of owls to the public with an owl in-hand. It’s a unique experience to see the serrations on the leading edge of the wing or the beautiful facial discs in person and we are so excited to share that with people who are as passionate about the conservation of these birds as we are.
While owl season is winding down, we did get some interesting by-catch this week! We caught an American Woodcock around dawn one morning, and heard several others displaying in the evenings. It’s not uncommon to find an American Robin or two in the dune nets when we close. The most interesting by far, however, were two Sharp-shinned Hawks!
Eye color is one of the ways to assess the age of a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Younger birds have a golden/yellow eye that become red as they get older. If you compare the two photos above, you can see that the first bird has a rusty red eye and the second bird has a lighter yellow eye. That, along with examining feather generations like with other birds, let us know that the first bird captured was more than two years old, while the second bird was in its second year.
We didn’t have many Saw-whets this week but we took some good pictures of the ones we did catch! There has been no observable patterns in these stragglers; they have been a mix of ages and sexes. This pretty lady gave us an over-the-shoulder-pose that shows off her gorgeous heart-shapes facial disc.
Thats all from us! We will update you again soon on the last week of our 2024 spring owl banding season. Enjoy the beautiful spring weather and all the birds it brings with it.
