The Fat Lady Hooted at Kestrel Haven! We brought in nets on the 30th to end a so-so season and leave us longing for another 2012!( when we banded well over 200 saw-whets) We banded 50 new birds, had 3 repeats and, for the very first time, had zero foreigns and none of our birds visiting other stations. We made a stab at LEOWs without success.
Our 50 breakdown to 1 AHY, 8 ASY, 6 SY and 35 HY, a very normal distribution. It was much the same with sex ratio as we had 84% female, 7 Unknowns and 1 definite male. We banded from 01 October through 29 November on 39 nights logging 622 net hours which works out to one bird every 12 net hours. Our best night was 12 on 22 October. First bird banded was 14 October and last was 29 November. Although the season started very slowly with birds being caught to our west, east and south, it all came out as pretty normal. It did give us an opportunity to add to our knowledge/assumptions of migration dynamics here. We believe "our" birds fly south directly over Lake Ontario as well as some that skirt the lake's western edge. This of course is strongly dependent on wind speed and direction. Those birds skirting the eastern edge of the lake tend to then follow a path down the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake and miss us by a good 40 miles. In previous years owls banded here showed a strong tendency to fly south by southwest based on visits to other stations. This year???? That's what makes it fun as we keep learning. John and Sue To decode our bander lingo. These are all Northern Saw-whet Owls (NSWO). LEOW is Long-eared Owl which we tried due to a tremendous fallout of same in Ontario this fall. AHY is after hatching year but we can't determine the age closer than "adult", ASY is a bird at least 3 years old, SY is a second year bird, HY is a bird hatched this year . For the most part molt intricacies are such that we can't age NSWOs beyond ASY. TY, third year, and ATY (after third year) calls are iffy at best as we have huge variations in molt patterns within this species. -- John and Sue Gregoire Field Ornithologists Kestrel Haven Avian Migration Observatory 5373 Fitzgerald Road Burdett,NY 14818-9626 N 42 26.611' W 76 45.492' Website: http://www.empacc.net/~kestrelhaven/ "Conserve and Create Habitat" -- 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/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
