Owl Banding 9/30/16

Point LaBarbe, St. Ignace, MI
Night of September 30th, 2016

High winds and scattered showers impacted the banding effort last night resulting in low numbers of birds caught, however we did get a few Saw-whets for the Petoskey Audubon Group that was visiting for the evening. Two birds were waiting in the net at the first run, which is rather unusual since most nights we don’t get any birds until a little later in the night. A total of five birds were caught, with the first bird caught being the last one from the previous morning. When weighed, the owl had lost 16 grams of body weight in the 12 hours since it was last caught! Out of the other four new birds netted, three were female and the other was unknown. One of the females was aged as an after second year bird, while the rest were all hatch year birds. Rain is in the forecast for the next few days so we will see if we get to open nets anytime soon!

Photos courtesy of Bill & Sue Klco

Master Bander Ed Pike working on a Saw-whet
Master Bander Ed Pike recording data from a Saw-whet Owl
Kim Edgington (me) attaching a band onto the Saw-whet's leg
Kim Edgington (me) using special pliers to attach a band onto the Saw-whet’s leg
Northern Saw-whet Owl in the hand
Northern Saw-whet Owl in the hand, if you look closely you can see the new band on the bird’s leg
Northern Saw-whet Owl posing in a tree after release
Northern Saw-whet Owl posing in a tree after release

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