October 1st turned out to be our busiest night yet with 20 owls of 3 species banded. Already a third of the way into our season, we now have 69 Saw-whet Owls and 1 Long-eared Owl, but the big story continues to be an impressive Barred Owl presence at the point. An unprecedented 27 individuals have been captured so far, 7 of which were banded on October 1st. We cannot be sure why so many Barreds have appeared at the point this fall. Because less than half of them are juveniles that fledged this summer, our high numbers probably aren't due to normal dispersal after an exceptional breeding year. A better explanation most likely involves a lack of favored prey from wherever they are originating from.
We are quite jealous of Chris's October 2nd Short-eared Owl sighting (see his photos on the wpbo sightings blog). We hope that the next one passing through comes a few hours earlier and ends up in one of our nets!
~Keith & Wendy
Wendy extracts a Barred Owl from the net
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