100 Swets and counting!

On Friday night I banded my 100 Saw-whet of the season.It was the 6th of 8 Owls caught that night. This is of course an all time High for me as I have only banding a couple of years!.

Collectively between 3 Banders in 2 locations we have 215 Saw-whets,3 Screech,1 Barred and as of Saturday a Long-eared Owl.When I recieve photos I will add them to this!

We will be lucky to get another week or so of Owls and the Raptor Station will be closing down also. We will in the winter months start Road Trapping for Snowy Owls and other winter Raptors around Simcoe County.

This is not a fluke that we are having a Banner Year for Owls as almost all Stations in North America are having incredible Nights. Thousands of Saw-whet Owls have been banded this Fall and many have been retrapped as they Move south. I will give a pretty good picture of how the Owls move. They have had an exceptional Breeding Season and we now get a chance to scratch the Surface of the Magnitude of their Migration!

All Banders that participate in the Owl Migration Monitoring deserve a Big Round of Applause for all thier efforts. Many of us are not paid to do this and put in incredible amounts of Time to make it all work. We are normal working Stiffs with Families,Men, Woman,Young and Old of many backgrounds and Beliefs. We all work together as Individuals or small Groups for one common Goal. It is an experience all should have atleast once in their Lives. It is important for Children especially as they wil be the ones that will carry on after us.