Ken, It's reasonable to assume that at least a few of the thousands of saw-whets that came through the Finger Lakes in the fall would decide to winter here. This is particularly true for the males who would then be closer to breeding territory come spring and presumably accrue an advantage.
We were lucky to find one here for the Schuyler CBC in late December but do not hear them. Nothing unusual there as it is that behavior that had many pronouncing that saw-whets didn't come through our area in any numbers. We were fortunate to handle 251 owls last fall, 243 of those were newly banded saw-whets. Overall the saw-whet migration was astounding with record numbers banded throughout Canada and the US, some traveling as far south as Alabama and Georgia. John -- 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/ --
