Owl update! Last week was relatively steady with sporadic NSWO movement throughout each evening. Typical are nights of 1, 2, or 3 owls caught per night with no predictable pattern of time of capture. This shows the importance of constant-effort bird monitoring. After the big storms last weekend, I predicted a relatively large movement of owls after the weather systems passed through. And it seemed to be true, with four caught early the first night after the storms, which I took to be a harbinger of a busy night.
But I was wrong…
The evening of 4/2 started warm and calm, cloudy with no owls captured before midnight. Then, the clouds parted, revealing a nearly full moon and nets dripping with owls. Seven in ONE net run! Suspended in mid-air like feathered torpedoes, frozen still awaiting delicate extraction. While not the most yet caught in a single night this season (13), the fact that so many individuals were caught at once in such a narrow time window is providing valuable insight into NSWO migration. The night ended up with one more owl at 0400.
Monday night was a similarly productive, albeit evenly distributed out, night at 6 individuals caught, This gives us a total of 52 NSWO caught on the season as of 4/3/23.
As we look ahead, some rainy and windy nights are forecasted for the rest of this week. Such is spring. It’ll be interesting to see how these weather patterns affect the owl migration and what it’ll bring our way. Fingers crossed for something to increase our species diversity (I’m looking at you SEOW).
