Last night’s west winds brought a few birds to the point. A few saw-whets were captured between dusk and 2100 hours and our first Barred Owl of the season came in at 2200 hours. I wasn’t able to capture an image of the bird, but I do have several bite marks on my hands for proof. It was a feisty one-and smelly, too. After banding and releasing the barred, I checked the far locations and found a Long-eared Owl in the passive net. That makes our second long-eared for the season with hopefully more to come in the next nine nights left on the point.
We still haven’t captured any long-eareds in the LEOW audio lure location, which has us wondering if we need to change things up next season. There has been a recent increase in banding stations using a LEOW audio lure to bring in long-eareds and some banders are reporting having success. We’ll see how the rest of the season goes and make changes where we think are necessary.
After 0100 hours, the winds switched to the southwest, which slowed the movement to a screeching halt. In total, six Northern Saw-whets were captured last night along with the barred and long-eared owls. Season totals at this time are listed below.
Northern Saw-whet Owl: 232
Barred Owl: 1
Long-eared Owl: 2
Tonight’s wind is predicted to be out of the west at 5 mph, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that a few more birds move thru. As always, stay tuned.
