Better LEOWs

Always surprised, always mad.

Hallo

Things are still slow for me at night, feeling lucky to catch 15 Saw-whets and a Long-eared. The winds look favorable in the next few days, so we're hoping for a push of birds. Mostly I'm waiting for more Boreals or a Great-horned to show up for us to try to catch.

Thick Fog

Wind last night, rain tonight.

A LEOW with a few white talons.

Debate!

Great night with Caitlin last night, 59 Swets, 8 LEOW and 1 Barred, with a three species net run!


Nice little deformity here

LEOWS

It's all about the Long-eared Owls now.  Though we did end up with 154 Saw-whets two nights ago, they are going to be winding down in the next couple of weeks, but the LEOWs will be more abundant as hinted at by our 40 captured two nights ago.  Though that night did not top our biggest night of owls this fall, handling and processing that many bigger owls certainly made it feel like more birds.
 

Socked in

After a handful of nights of wind, rain or both we had a great break in weather Thursday night and the owls POURED in. With the help of Frank, Danny, Jessica and Annie 219 Northern Saw-whet Owls and 7 Long-eared Owls were banded in about 11.5 hours. It got hectic at times, especially since all of the Long-eareds were caught between 4am and 6am, but we powered through, and managed to release our final owl before we could stop using our headlamps. Last night was less busy, but we finished the night with 79 Saw-whets and one Barred Owl. And tonight, despite the heavy fog I set up a few nets for about an hour, just to see, and caught another Barred immediately!

Three white talons, though the one on the left seems to have a black core to it?
My second Barred of the fall

 And my third, from tonight
Though not terribly difficult to take out of the net or band, Long-eareds are tougher than Saw-whets and do throw a wrench in your operation.

Back banding tonight