Hi All, Last evening after setting up for a night of owl banding, we caught the first owl of the season. However, the way it was caught was a bit unusual.
The way we catch the nocturnal owls is quite simple. We set up a series of mist nets. Our setup is a "T" shape. At the top of the "T" is a CD player and two speakers. Everything is set up before dark to ensure the nest are high enough to catch the birds as they fly south during migration. As we were setting the nest up, I heard a Northern Saw-whet calling and commented on it. At dark we walked out to turn on the recorder that broadcasts the Flammulated Owl call. Keep in mind there was no recorder playing at this time. As we walked to the recorder there was a Northern Saw-whet Owl caught in the mist net. This is the earliest we have ever caught saw-whet owl and the first time we caught one with out broadcasting its call. In the past the first earliest that we caught a saw-whet was 3 September. We decided to play the flam recording for the first half hour then the saw-whet recording for the second half hour and the flam for the following half hour and so on, but did not catch any other owls. In the past we haven't caught saw-whets this early, I will try again tonight switching off recordings to see what happens. FYI. The saw-whet owl we caught was a little male born this year. He weighed 72 grams and interestingly enough, was missing his tail. I banded the owl and placed him on a branch before he flew off. Scott Rashid Estes Park -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
