Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Saw-whets moving well!

We started Banding for Saw-whets on September 26th this year. It started off rather slowly with 1 or 2 Owls a night until the 29th we caught 6 Saw-whets and 1 Screech Owl. This included a Foreign Retrap that was Banded somewhere else in Ontario on October 10th 2007. On Sept 30th 1 Saw-whet was netted .
On Friday and Saturday Nights I was doing a Banding Demonstration at the WYE Marsh in Midland Ontario. It is 85 km's north of our Banding Station. It was poor Owl wise with only 1 Bird on the last night, and this was only after the Guests had departed .
Subsequently my Banding Partner was at the Station and netted a few on Friday and 20 on Saturday, which included 2 Foreign Retraps. One was banded elsewhere in Ontario and the Other from Assateague Island ,Worcester CO. Maryland. It was banded Oct. 30 2007 by David Brinker , who spearheads Project Owlnet that many of us particpate in!
On Sunday I caught 14 more unbanded Saw-whets and Monday another 18 , which one is a Foreign Retrap of unknown Origin as of yet. Last night we caugt 8 more and our Total is 75 on the Season , which is 30 Birds higher than this time last year!
This is supposed to be a poor year campared to last year, as most other Stations are reporting, but we are actually seeing it busier! GO FIGURE!

We will carry on as we can(tonight is raining) and hopefully will have some Pics to post.

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