Welcome to the Week 3 wrap-up, by far our busiest week to date! Despite a few nights of early net closures or not being able to open at all due to high winds, we still averaged about 22 owls per night, over 2x our average from last week. We ended the week with 149 saw-whet owls (NSWOs), our busiest night being Oct. 1st with 44 owls banded. It was interesting to really see migration start to ramp up, as it took us almost 2.5 weeks to hit our 100th bird (a very exciting event!) and only 4 days to go from 100 to 200 owls! Our season total is now 221, and hopefully will continue to climb over the coming week.
We also had some visitors at the banding station this week, and got to answer some great questions about why bird banding is such a valuable conservation tool. At its core, banding is a mark-recapture study, where the birds are given a unique code, and are ideally recaptured later on in their life. This type of study can provide a significant amount of information for a species, from migration patterns to life span. All of the banding information is entered into a central database, which allows researchers from across the country to determine where birds they catch were banded. We’ve had a number of recaptures so far this season, the bulk of which were originally banded at Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, about an hour north of our station. We also know from previous years that some of the saw-whets banded here at MSRW have been recaptured at banding stations all the way in Maine! While scientists have made huge advances in tracking technology, and we can put high tech transmitters on just about any bird now, banding is still one of the best ways to gather data on a large scale due to how relatively cost effective and accessible it is.
We’re excited to see some good weather forecasted for the coming week, which hopefully means a lot more owls to come! We’re also anxiously awaiting our first non-saw-whet of the season, as the station historically catches a few long-eared and barred owls each fall. Maybe our luck will turn in Week 4!
Until next week,
Mary & Peyton
