If Birds are Business then Business is Good!
Greetings yet again fellow MSRW followers and supporters! Now usually I would not post a blog so soon after just recently publishing one based on the fact that I like to leave a little time in-between to keep the readers wanting more, however there has been a lot going on out at the state park and I would feel selfish to keep such exciting news from you all. Since my last post we have continued to have great numbers of owls moving through the park. We also are continuing to capture more and more previously banded saw-whets which is always exciting. Let’s get you all caught up on the new foreign recaptures. Since my last entry we netted another 5 NSWO that have been previously banded. One of these was banded right here in Cheboygan state park back in 2017 by either me or my close friend Arthur. The other 4 birds all hailed from different locations. One was banded in Duluth, Minnesota in 2015 as a hatch year bird. This is neat because that means that this bird is in its 5th year of life which is pretty amazing and quite old, we are glad she’s doing well. We also captured another bird that was banded at Whitefish Point in 2017 and our last recapture which has been our furthest was a bird that was banded all the way over in Sullivan County, New York back in 2017. Thus far we have captured 11 NSWO that have been already banded and we are still awaiting information on one bird which I will include in the next blog as soon as I get some information.
We have also started to see larger owl species moving through the park over the past week and yes to my delight and yours we did manage to capture some. We have caught 2 Barred Owls so far and just last night we banded 3 Long-eared owls which is seriously incredible! We have been playing the LEOW call for over a week and it just seems now that they are showing up hopefully we will capture many more especially if last night was an indicator of what is yet to come. Now not everything is perfect until last night we were closed on the 6th, 7th and 8th due to rain so we are hoping we get a good stretch of weather here and that this season only gets better and better! As always I will do my best to keep you all updated on what’s going on out in the park. Until next time let us all hope that the weathermen/women of Michigan are wrong and that we continue to have nice weather! As always stay classy folks!
Season Totals: Total birds: 113
NSWO: 97
LEOW: 3
BDOW: 2
Recaptured NSWO: 11
