Another week is in the books and we’ve had a comparatively drastic increase in the number of owls we’ve been catching, ending with 67 for the week and 72 so far for the season. Our biggest night of the week offered 22. Our average nightly catch rate for week 1 was about 1-2, and this week we’ve seen an increase to about 10 birds a night.
We had a great time having the board and visitors come out to see some owls and we were lucky to be able to show them a good evening haul. Wonderful snacks and treats were brought out and a great time was had around a campfire under the Milky Way with conversations of critters and life. It’s always wonderful to have people come together who are equally as passionate about these birds and to see them experience them up close for the first time.
We’ve had a few recaptures come through, one of which was caught as a hatch year at Whitefish Point Observatory in July, so it’s great to see our feathered friends persevering in their migration.
It’s looking promising for the coming weeks as we expect more migrants to start passing through in high numbers in conjunction with north winds.
As a side note, we had a Swainson’s Thrush during our last check of the morning a few nights ago, which was our first songbird of the season.
The season’s looking promising so far, so stay tuned for next week’s reveal.
Until next time,
Peyton and Mary
