Welcome back to the banding station. Since my last update, owls were at a paucity, but now over the past week, movement has been picking up.
Back on Tuesday (Oct 1) I enjoyed the company of six owls, which was the season’s best night. This isn’t a particularly impressive number for early October, but I still felt like a lucky lady rich in owls after nearly two weeks of effort running the banding station with hardly any activity. Thursday night was similarly bountiful, at five owls.
Thanks to special permission from TC Energy and a little extra funding, last night we manned a new saw-whet owl audio lure net array one mile northeast from our original site. There was certainly some difficulty in running a second productive net array, but it did pay off with higher numbers of saw-whets and the first long-eared owl of the season. October 4th now holds the season best at 14 saw-whets, one long-eared, and one woodcock.
Sooooo~ we’ll see how this new net array goes! The habitat is open woodland, so there’s higher potential for the nets there to yield long-eared owls and barred owls.
Season totals are as such
NSWO 37
LEOW 1
Other guys: 1 woodcock, 1 whip-poor-will
Until next time,
Maycee
