Very interesting information. Thx for sharing.
Steve K
Hart County, KY
On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 7:44 AM <brainard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mark Monroe just completed his 21st season of netting Northern Saw-whet
Owls during fall migration on our farm here in ne. Jefferson County.
This turned out to be another below-average season, at least in part due
to poor weather conditions during the peak of the normal migration period.
Rainy nights, windy nights, and nights with light winds from the wrong
direction reduced the number of times we attempted banding to fewer than
ten this year.
The effort resulted in the capture of only three individuals, which about
ties our seasonal lows during the two decades of banding. Southward flights
of this species are cyclical depending on a combination of reproductive
success during the previous summer and prey availability at the end of
nesting season. Reports from banding stations to our north were mixed as
the migration season began; a few stations reported record or near-record
highs, but most reported an average to below-average season overall. It is
possible that the warm weather of late October and early November resulted
in some or many birds stopping north of our region to overwinter???
Mark *did* have a significant recapture of a bird he banded here on the
night of 17 Nov 2020. That bird was recaptured by one of Scott Weidensaul's
team in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, on the night of 26 Oct 2022. That is
about 90 miles wnw. of Philadelphia. One of the interesting things about
these birds is that one year an individual will end up on the east side of
the Appalachians and then another winter it will end up west of the
Appalachians. However, some birds do seem to show some site fidelity. On
the night of 2 Nov 2013, Mark recaptured a bird that he had banded on the
farm on the night of 27 Oct 2012!
Below is a summary of our capture #s from the past 22 years:
2001 - 2
2002 - none (we think we didn't actually try that fall)
2003 - 1
2004 - 6
2005 - 5
2006 - 1
2007 - 91
2008 - 12
2009 - 13
2010 - 20
2011 - 24
2012 - 62
2013 - 5 + recap
2014 - 9
2015 - 8
2016 - 47
2017 - 3
2018 - 5
2019 - 3
2020 - 43
2021 - 6
2022 - 3
MSM and BPB
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