Kestrel Haven Saw-whet report for fall 2013: We attempted netting of Northern Saw-whet Owls on 31 nights between 26 Sep and 20 Nov working between one and 6 hours each night. Using standard 12 meter mist nets our measure of efficiency was 6 birds per 100 net hours effort. More birds and more hours in 2012 gave us 8/100NH MOE. We had 253 owls last year compared to 2013's 37! That's roughly 87% fewer.
This year weather was not in our favor nor was the number of migrants coming south via this flyway. Nightly radar imagery revealed huge movement in the central flyway and the Atlantic Coastal flyway whereas our inland Atlantic flyway showed little to no movement. Prevailing winds also contributed to some unusual recoveries of same season banded owls. While in the Adirondacks, we missed a few nights in the beginning of October which turned out to be the most profitable for the Finger Lakes in terms of numbers of owls per night! We had three of our birds recovered at other sites. One from 2012 in Sullivan Cty, NY and another in the same area 12 days after being banded this October. The movement to the SSE was indeed strange and new to our birds that have mostly tended SSW in previous years. We recovered two birds previously banded in PA in 2010 and 2012. Both were Scott Weidensaul's and the older became a known ATY. The flyway has established a strong link between our site, PePtBO in Ontario and Scott's Small Valley site in PA. While we had some that we suspected by molt to be TY or ATY there has been enough confusion in reported molts of known age birds to limit our calls to ASY or ATY in cases of unusual molts. Direct TY and ATY calls have to be treated as suspect until we as a community know much more.Photography and detailed description of known age molt limits for these birds will be helpful. In 2012 the owls were 25% adult and this year it was 78% indicating a low production year in the breeding grounds. Sixty-eight per cent of this year's owls were female, 12 % were male and 20% were recorded as unknown sex. Of the adults, 47% were SY, 28% ASY and 1% AHY. Eighty-seven per cent fewer owls makes for more sleepy nights but doesn't alter the honor, awe and joy of handling these wonderful creatures for a few minutes of their lives. -- John and Sue Gregoire Field Ornithologists Kestrel Haven Avian Migration Observatory 5373 Fitzgerald Road Burdett,NY 14818-9626 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/ --
