>From Hammond Hill Saw-whet Roost Banders in the mid-eastern portion of the saw-whet range (non-coastal, non-Upper Great Lakes) have caught record numbers of saw-whets this fall.
Last night, Bob McGuire, Bob Horn, Julia and Erin Gillis (daughter, father), Andy and Michaela Myers (married), Charlie Carpenter, Karen and John Confer had the best banding night for the Hammond Hill in the middle of the best population irruption in at least 20 years. We caught an astounding total of 36 birds. This is not a big number for some of the major banding stations, but it doubles our previous high. At one time, we had 12 little owls in boxes in the banding shed! In the first third of the migration, the Hatch Year birds comprised about 95% of the catch. But last night, we captured 4 Second Year birds and 2 After Hatch Year birds, about 17% of the birds. The holy grail of banding is to recover a bird banded by someone else. Last night, we go two such birds. Almost all the birds were captured between 8:30 and 10:00. At that time, as NOAA predicted, it seemed that the wind changed from being from the north to being from the south. Migration nearly stopped. All birds were released within 45 minutes of removal from the net and were in good enough condition to fly upward on release! Yea! We got the nets down and the gear put away by about 2 and the Hammond Hill Roost went to sleep. What an amazing experience, John and Karen -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
