Moving this blog (probably)

I'm (probably) moving this blog to a Wordpress installation on my own server:

http://owls.taiga.com/

I'll be posting the same material on both for a while.

No owls on Aug 19; 3 owls banded on Aug 20.

No owls banded on the night of Aug 19.  Very heavy fog rolled in around 11:00pm, half an hour after opening the nets.

Three Northern Saw-whets were banded on the night of Aug 20; two females and one unknown, all hatch-year birds.
It was cloudy and dark; the rain held off until about 1:30am.

2013 total so far: 5 NSWO, zero BOOW.

Start of Fall 2013 Owl Banding

Start of 2013 Owl Banding Season:

Nets are set up (at least 3 of them are so far).
Two Northern Saw-whets banded in two nights of operation so far.

The first saw-whet of the season was a very aggressive hatch-year male.

I currently have three 9-meter 60mm mesh nets set up in a semi-triangle around the audio lure.
I should have the 12-meter nets set up within the next few days.

Blog resurrection

I am going to attempt to resurrect this blog; I'll be posting owl banding results every couple of days through the banding season.

The last two years have been interesting: lots of owls banded in 2011, and very few in 2012, with similar coverage and effort both years.

Banded in 2011:
Northern Saw-whet Owl: 256
Boreal Owl: 54
Recaptures: 2 (both Northern Saw-whets banded here in 2010)


Banded in 2012:
Northern Saw-whet Owl: 20
Boreal Owl: 5
Recaptures: 1 (Northern Saw-whet banded here in 2011)


Total owls banded, 2009-2012:

Year	NSWO	BOOW	GHOW	NHOW	TOTAL
2009	166	32			198
2010	94	23			117
2011	256	54		1	311
2012	20	5	1	1	27
Totals	536	114	1	2	653

Spring 2010 banding

The last owl banded in 2009 was a Boreal on Dec. 19.

Opened the nets again once every couple of weeks, with no success until March 1, when I caught a third-year Saw-whet.

I haven't been able to try again since then; the recent blizzards dumped near 5 feet of snow and buried the nets.

Banded Saw-whet Owl

Boreal Owl in a bag