More owl stares

More of the BUOWs

Kestrel dives on Burrowing Owl

New years in VT

Sitting like a nightjar

A63

The only owl I caught last night was one we'd caught as the sun was setting and had been banded a while back. It's actually the owl from the picture yesterday. It has one silver band with a 9 digit number on its right leg and a blue band with "A63" on it's left leg, something we use to resight it in the field. It's always good to recapture birds to confirm that are still here or see how weight is fluctuating, but it's nice to catch unbanded ones too, which has not been happening much.

Here it is last night:

Owl trapping

No wind today, but lots of fog and probably fewer birds than yesterday. We'll be trying to catch some owls tonight, which usually results in no owls being caught, but it's calm out, so we must!

Yay Kanner

For Odin!

Owl?

Key

Here's the hidden owl from the previous post

For Pbo

Find the owl

Mice

If you've read anything about this island recently it was probably about mice. There are a lot here, they eat what they can and get themselves eaten as well, mostly by the burrowing owls, the raven, and gulls, but also by there fellow mouse.

Today we had a sharp-shinned hawk running loose, killing any songbird in sight along with this mouse


Gulped down momentarily


Lots of mouse bones found in these owl's pellets

Simon's Back

Yesterday we woke up to many more birds. Sparrows we had: Swamp, Fox, White-throated, White-crowned, Lincoln's, Savannah, Golden-crowned. We caught a Rock Wren, some sparrows, a Say's Phoebe, a Robin, and some others. Looks foggy out right now.

This Say's was first banded here on the Island in 2007 (by MDD)!


Caught this Rock Wren up at the lighthouse


I found a Burrowing Owl roost


Varied Thrush

Caught some

Caught some birds today too!

Tennessee Warbler


A couple of Burrowing Owls this evening

The Stare Down

Today I had my first full day on the Southeast Farallon Islands. I had an epic area search with Jim, saw the aftermath of a shark attack, but no shark, lots of elephant seals, lots of California Sea Lions, Peregrine fights, and MICE.

Elephant seal.


Burrowing owl. We banded two tonight, this one stared us down as we collected his pellets.