It’s hard to believe we just wrapped up our second to last week of banding, as it feels like the season only just started. Historically the last two weeks of banding can be very slow, seeing single digits most nights through to the end. But despite being so late in the season, the week still held some excitement for us!
Week 7 was a bit of a mixed bag, with bad weather causing us to close the nets early more often than not. We were also completely unable to net on Wednesday and Thursday (10/30 & 10/31) due to wind and rain. Even with the weather closures, we still managed to captured and band 71 total owls, including *three* long-eared owls (LEOWs) and a barred owl! We’d been anticipating a good night on Friday (11/1) because of the two previous nights of rain, but neither one of us guessed we would catch two long-eared owls simultaneously. It was definitely a shock coming up to the nets and seeing them next to each other!
Long-eareds aren’t a species we catch too frequently here at Pt. LaBarbe, with most previous years catching between 2 and 6. Doubling our total number of LEOWS in one night was pretty spectacular, and it was really cool to be able to look at slight variations in color with both birds in hand. Catching another on Saturday night was a very unexpected treat as well, since I had thought we used up all our luck the previous night. While I definitely have a soft spot for the saw-whets, I think after this season the long-eareds may be my favorite owl!
We also caught a barred owl on Friday, making 11/1 only the second night of the season where we’ve had 3 species in the same night. On top of a triple species night, Friday also delivered us the milestone we had been anxiously awaiting, but were unsure we’d hit….
2024 now holds the record for the highest number of owls captured during the fall banding season! Our 673rd owl was a lovely hatch-year female who came through the station just past midnight on 11/2, narrowly beating out the previous record of 672 caught in 2020. We quickly shot past 673 on Saturday, bringing our grand total for the season to 701 owls (and counting!), quite literally hundreds more than either of us anticipated. Considering both Peyton and I made our season guesses around 400 owls, hitting 700 feels hard to believe. And with one whole week left to go, it’s crazy to think we could catch even more!
Having blown past the record, we’ve decided to set our sights on a new goal for the final week of banding: catching a boreal owl! While it’s highly unlikely, and doesn’t seem like one has been caught at this location before (or at least in the last 10 years from my digging through past blogs!), this year seems to be a boom year for the species, with sightings all over the UP. We’ve even had a report of one heard near the nets the other night, so maybe we’ll be the luckiest MSRW fall owl banders on record! Wish us luck as we try to finish out the season strong.
Until next week,
Mary & Peyton
