Welcome to Week 1 of Fall 2024 Owl Banding here at Mackinac Straits! We’re excited to have you follow along with what we hope will be an eventful and successful season. Before we get into how the first week of banding went, allow us to introduce ourselves.
My name is Mary, and I’m the assistant owl bander this fall! I’m originally from New York, but have spent the last few years living in Georgia and California working with a variety of songbirds and shorebirds. I’ve never had the opportunity to work with raptors before, so I’m very excited to be here in Michigan this fall to experience owl banding.
I’m Peyton and I’m one of the owl banders for the season. Owls were my spark bird, in particular the barn owl, so this position is a nice full circle moment for me. I’m excited to see what this season has in store for us.
The season is off to a sloooow start, presumably due to unseasonably warm temperatures and south winds keeping the birds from moving. We opened our nets on Sept. 15th, and spent our first two nights eagerly awaiting an owl, only to close our nets empty-handed come morning. Despite the lack of owls, the night sky kept us entertained with a beautiful showing of the northern lights, and a partial lunar eclipse. Our luck finally turned near dawn on the third night, and we got our first Norther Saw-Whet (NSWO) of the season! This hatch year female is hopefully the first of many more over the coming weeks.
The week ended on a high note when we did our first net run of the night and found a sharp-shinned hawk. We rarely catch anything other than saw-whets, so it’s always a special treat to find something new in the nets. Besides our sharpie, we ended the week with a total of 5 saw-whet owls, averaging about one per night. With a shift of the winds and temperature possible in the next few days, we’re hopeful that migration will really kick off soon!
Until next week,
Mary & Peyton
