Bird Banding in Saskatchewan

Snow Bunting Banding

2011-12-02T09:07:00.003-07:00

This summer Oliver Love sent out a request for volunteer bird bandings to help study Snow Buntings across Canada this winter. Of course, without many birds to band around here during the winter, I have jumped at the opportunity. We are still waiting for a bit of snow around here before we start heading out, but I thought I would just post a bit information on the Snow Bunting.

The Snow Bunting is a small passerine that nests in Canada's Arctic. It comes down to Saskatchewan during the winter in small to very large flocks. The bird is easily identifiable with its white body and black back, wings and tail. While in flight the bird is easily to ID with its long black and white wings.

Oliver and his team of student researchers have been working on Snow Buntings on Canada's East Bay Island. Since 2007 his team have banded an amazing 1000 Snow Buntings on this tiny little island in the Arctic. They have also been doing some really amazing research using geolocators, colour banding and sound recording devices. They are studying signals of male quality, mating strategies, reproductive physiology and the migratory connectivity of the Snow Bunting population on East Bay Island. For more information on all of this research, check out the first "Snow Bunting Report" published by Oliver and his crew earlier this week. Some fascinating information in here.

You can also check out the Canadian Snow Bunting Network website.

We'd also like to thank Sun Country Farms in Langham, SK for their help in acquiring the feed we need to catch the birds. Thanks Sun Country Farms! :)

I look forward to posting once we start catching some birds!!

A little bird feeder banding

2011-11-14T10:17:00.008-07:00

This weekend we got out and set up a net to try to trap and band some of the birds frequenting our bird feeders. We have been trapping Black-capped Chickadees here at our farm since February 12, 2010. On November 11, we captured 11 unbanded Black-capped Chickadees and 2 chickadees that already wore bands. The two recaptured chickadees were banded at our feeders on Feb 13, 2010, and on Feb 21, 2010. That was approximately 21 months ago!

Band #2031-73210 was originally aged as a Second Year bird, meaning it was hatched in 2009, so it is now ~2.5 years old, while #2031-73202 was originally aged as a After Second Year bird, which means it hatched in 2008 or earlier, so it is atleast 3.5 years old and may be older. These birds weighed 12.6g and 12.2g on Nov 11, 2011, and 13.6g and 12.4g on their initial capture dates. This photo shows the wing of Chickadees #202. You can see the greater coverts have nice bold white edges. The primary coverts are nice and broad with some white peppering the middle of the feathers. These two characteristics suggest this is an older bird, which is confirmed by the band it was wearing.

We had been seeing this bird at the feeder for a couple of days and were excited to capture it. It is a White-throated Sparrow. This is a tan-striped bird, as you will notice the white and black crown, and white throat are not very colourful. We hope it survives the winter! Normally these birds will winter in the southeastern United States.

To learn more about White-throated Sparrows check out this website (The Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

A big surprise in Wascana Centre!

2011-11-08T12:01:00.009-07:00

Well the snow fell on Sunday this week and already a Northern Hawk Owl shows up in the Centre just yesterday (Nov 7, 2011)!!

This is the second NHOW that has been in Regina in the last three years. This is a very unique find as the Northern Hawk Owl spends almost all of its time in the forests of northern Saskatchewan. It is quite unusual to find it south on the prairies. Margaret Belcher's "Birds of Regina" (1980) makes no mention of Hawk Owls in Regina.

We were able to capture this bird this morning and band it.
The bird weighed 330 gram, with a wing chord of 227mm. I aged it as an AHY as it had retained primaries, secondaries, primary coverts, alula, and median and lesser coverts. However, the greater coverts were all replace. You can see this in the photo below.

The bird was originally spotted by Dan Sawatsky on his street in southern Regina. I later saw it in the Habitat Conservation Area in Wascana Centre. This morning it was in the Display Ponds.

Kim Mann snapped this photo and allowed me to post it here. Thanks Kim!

56 NSWO to date

2011-11-08T12:00:00.003-07:00

So things never really picked up for saw-whets this year. Our highest capture rate in one night was 9 birds. With this snow maybe a few might still be moving through....

The owls still haven't arrived....

2011-10-12T11:37:00.008-06:00

Last night I closed the nets at 22:15 (a little bit early...), after having them open for over three hours. No wind, the nets hung beautifully still. The full moon was out last night, but there was significant cloud cover, and there are still many leaves on the trees so shadows were cast on the nets. In the last 5 previous years, this is our peak weekend.

A seemingly ideal night for owls...

And yet no one hit the net. We didn't even hear any owls around.

Since my last post on October 2nd we have added 4 more owls, to a lackluster showing of 7 owls in total. A boring season so far.

We had friends Theo and Karen Kolkman out to check out the banding on Saturday and managed to atleast catch a single owl for them at 23:10. Here's Theo examining the owl.

The forecast has a few NW wind evenings coming up here and the temperature is dropping, so maybe, just maybe the owls will begin to move through our area. If not, I've got no idea as to what has happened to them this year.

Stay tuned...

Northern Saw-whet Banding 2011

2011-10-02T20:20:00.010-06:00

Our first saw-whet owl of 2011

On Tuesday September 20th we pulled out the old nets and got the net lanes cleared in excited anticipation for our 6th year of banding here at Saw-whet Acres! Six years!... I can't believe we've been doing this for six years now.

2010 was a our lowest overall total captures in the 5 years we'd been banding here, so we have high hopes that 2011 will be better.
So far not so....

Since opening on the 20th, our nets have been open for 8 evenings and only captured 3 owls. This is significantly lower than another other year. Here are the numbers from the first day of the season, to October 1st, over the last 5 years.

2006 - 8 nights open - 42 owls
2007 - 8 nights open - 22 owls
2008 - 8 nights open - 49 owls
2009 - 5 nights open - 11 owls
2010 - 6 nights open - 29 owls
2011 - 8 nights open - 3 owls....

My guess as to why the migration has been so slow is the unseasonally warm, or I should say hot weather. This last week we have had up to 29 degrees Celscius on a number of days. The owls just don't seem to be moving yet. With this warm weather we have strong southerly winds, which I believe slows down the birds. The other option is they simply take a different path that is with the wind...

We'll just have to see how things progress this month....
Stay tuned.

Sometimes you can read a band on a living birds leg!

2011-09-22T14:09:00.012-06:00

Hi all,
One of the most exciting things for me as a birdwatcher/bird bander is finding a healthy living bird with a band on its leg.

If you have ever seen a songbird with a band on its leg, I would say good luck reading that band with binoculars or a spotting scope! Only a really cooperative bird is going to sit there until you read that band. It is difficult enough reading the number of a size 0A band in the hand!!

At this time of year, Mallards and Wood Ducks begin staging in the Waterfowl Park Display Ponds (which is right across from the Conexus Art Centre, in Regina). There can be up to 800 ducks in there at this time of year. When I go in to feed our injured captive waterfowl flock (snow geese, mute swans, Canada Geese, ducks, etc), all these other birds come over to enjoy the grain we put out. These ducks are so bold that they will come up to feed even when you are sitting 2 meters away.

This is a perfect time to watch for banded birds. A Mallards band is big enough that you can actually read the digits on it! So I was delighted to see atleast 4 birds carrying bands on their legs the other day. Out came the binos.

This male Mallard was one of the birds that had a band on his leg, as you can see. I was able to read off his band number - 1667-59235. Then I rushed back to the office to submit the data to http://www.reportband.gov/ and discover the info on this bird.

It turns out this bird was banded 7 km east of Mirror, Alberta on July 28, 2004!
It was aged as an After Hatch Year (meaning it was atleast 1 year old at the time, but we don't know if it was any more, could be 1, 5, or older we just can't tell). Regardless this bird was atleast 8 years old! He has done pretty good. Below is a copy of the Certificate of Appreciation USGS and CWS send you when you submit a band recovery. This is for the mallard above.

I also read the bands off of two other Mallards. Last year Lorne Scott and I banded about 20 Mallards in the Display Ponds on September 20, 2010. The two other banded birds were actually two of these birds. Back in the Display Ponds 364 days later!

Remember check those birds for bands! Every little piece of information can help understand more about these birds!

I'm still alive!

2010-03-11T16:19:00.003-07:00

Hi everyone!

Apparently its been a while since I have posted here! My how time flies.
The birds are starting to come back!! I received a report today that Prairie Falcons are back at their traditional nest site in SW Saskatchewan, that Golden and Bald Eagles are being seen in the province and that Ferruginous Hawks are also coming home!!
How exciting is that!

Unfortunately, my long absence from the blog here has been a result of my lack of internet connection at home still.
But now with birds on their way home, I'm sure I'll be posting more often from work.

Just wanted to address some of the weird comments that have been posted here. Please know I do not support these anonymous comments that have been posted. I have deleted them all and hope that they do not continue. Please feel free to post on the blog if you have a legitimate comment regarding my blog.

I have begun receiving some band recoveries for the last two years of banding!! I've got a couple of Ferruginous Hawk recoveries in some neat places. I will hopefully post these results next week! Stay tuned!

Its a Turkey Vulture with a green tag!!!

2009-10-26T14:39:00.003-06:00

Last week my banding buddy, Kelly Kozij from Weyburn, sent me an email of a photo he had received of a large black bird with a green tag on its wing.
Well what do you know, it was a young Turkey Vulture with a green wing tag! How exciting is that!!

Deanne Miller-Jones initially saw the bird as it perched on the top of a light pole in her farm yard near Radville, SK, on Oct 15. Deanne snapped a few photos of the bird, but wasn't completely sure what she was looking at. After the email was passed around a bit it became clear that this was one of the Turkey Vultures tagged by Stuart Houston's crew this summer! Can you make out the tag on the bird below?

Deanne has graciously allowed me to post her photos here. Thanks Deanne!

The bird remained on the light pole for the entire night and departed the next morning around 10:45 AM.

After consulting with Stuart Houston, I found out that this bird, A88, was one of the last birds his crew tagged this fall. It was tagged NW of Hagen on the 30th of August, 2009. It was one of two young vultures found in the attic of an old shed. This nest site was used in 2004 and 2005, but apparently not again until 2009.

The distance from the original tagging site and Deanne's farm was 385 km. Deanne's keen eye is a example of how citizen's can assist in a research program. Without Deanne's report of this bird, this information would not have made it to Stuart and we couldn't have learned what we have learned (ie. that this bird has survived to now, survived the 4 inches of snow that was here for a few days, is still in Saskatchewan, traveled this far this quickly or slowly..., etc). Thanks Deanne for your report and thanks to Stuart Houston for the information regarding this bird.

A recapture!

2009-10-15T12:12:00.003-06:00

With only about 28 Northern Saw-whet Owls captured to date, we still did manage to net this little guy on the evening of Oct 12. The exciting part about this bird was that it was already wearing a little aluminum band!!

After submitting the data to the recovery website, (www.reportband.gov) I learned that this little guy was banding in Ontario, on Sept 22, 2007!! But that is all the detail I know at this point.

Two years ago I captured a bird from Thunder Cape Bird Observatory which is just east of Thunder Bay. The band number was only 400 bands away from the band number of this guy, so this bird likely was first banded at TCBO! This will be the second owl I have captured from their site! I don't know if this is the location where the bird was actually banded but this is my guess. Time will tell.

Looking at the molt pattern on the wing, we aged this bird as an After-Second-Year bird. You can see the different feather generations I have marked on the wing.

I will keep you posted if I find out any more information.

Slow start to Saw-whets

2009-10-08T17:37:00.003-06:00

Yikes! I can't believe it it already Oct 8th! It's been a while since my last post.

We are now supposedly deep in to the Northern Saw-whet Owl banding season, but our numbers do not reflect this! I started on Sept 15th this year, 5 days earlier then any other year, and yet my total number of owls so far is very low. To date I have only captured 19 owls. If you compare this to 2006 we were at 56 by this time, in 2007 we were at 84, and last year we had captured 50 owls by this time!

The weather this fall has been dismal! It seems for every night I am able to open my nets, I have two nights were I can't. This is because it is either too windy or because it is raining, or after tonight snowing!! Although it does seem like the owls are just not moving yet. A few days ago I had perfect owling weather and yet only 1 capture at a time of the season when I should have had around 10. This is the trend across the province it seems, for example Ross at Last Mountain Lake has only captured 6 owls as of two days ago!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a surge of owls to show up with this cold snap we are seeing now. But we will have to wait and see I guess.... Here is the first owl I captured this fall.

One thing that was really exciting for me this fall was finding a roosting Northern Saw-whet Owl in our shelterbelt. In the four years of banding, I have never found a saw-whet during the day! It was not me who actually found this little guy, I have the juncos and chickadees to thank. My dog and I were out walking in the morning a few days ago when I heard these little birds going nuts!! CHICKADDEEE-DEEE-DEEE-DEEEE!!!! There must have been twenty little birds flitting around the top of a few trees. I thought to myself there must be some kind of owl or hawk up there. So we went over to investigate and sure enough five feet from the top of the 30 foot spruce tree sat a little saw-whet staring down at me, seemingly annoyed with all the attention the little birds were giving it. It was sitting on a branch about a foot from the trunk of the tree. Below is a crappy picture of the owl. My telephoto lens is on the fritz.

Wing tagged Turkey Vultures

2009-08-15T19:37:00.007-06:00

This is Turkey Vulture tagging season! 2009 marks the 7th year of TUVU tagging in Saskatchewan by Dr. Stuart Houston, Brent Terry, Marten Stoffel, and Mike Bloom.

For those who are not aware banders are not permitted to place aluminum bands on the legs of Turkey Vultures. This is because TUVU excrete their body waste down their legs to cool themselves. If you place an aluminum band on their leg, you soon get a cement like mass on their leg that can seriously cause problems for the bird. Therefore to track TUVU's we place a patagial tag on the wing. Below is an example of one of these tags.

For the last 7 years Stuart's crew has been tagging nestling TUVU in Saskatchewan. They are trying to determine when young TUVUs begin nesting. Before this study, there was only one TUVU of known age on a nest in North America, it was 11 years old at the time. To date, I don't believe there has been any records of any of the wing tagged vultures from Saskatchewan have begun successful breeding but it is expected in the next few years some light will be shed on this question.

Last week I joined Brent Terry and Marten Stoffel at Indian Head to check on a few TUVU nests in the area. Lorne Scott also joined us. He has had TUVUs nesting on his land for over 4 years now I believe. I had a great time with all three of these guys! And we met a couple of wonderful landowners as well.

If you see a TUVU with a green wing tag please report it. You can contact me, or Dr. Stuart Houston of Saskatoon, SK. Or you can report it to http://www.reportband.gov/.

Turkey Vultures are increasing in numbers in Saskatchewan. They are using old abandoned farm houses and buildings as an artificial cave to nest in. If you are in SK and have TUVUs nesting in an old abandoned building on your land, please contact either me or Stuart. Below is an example of a Turkey Vulture house that has been active north of Regina for at least the last 4 years.

Update on Cooper's Hawks in Wascana Centre

2009-08-14T14:27:00.004-06:00

Posts have become scarce these days from me, mostly because Kristen and I just moved out to a farm near Edenwold, SK. We've bought an old farm yard, that hasn't really been lived in for over 10 years. Therefore, we have lost internet access for the time being (we've also lost phone service for at least another 1-2 months!!). Hopefully we can get internet sometime soon!

Anyways, I have been keeping an eye out for the young Cooper's Hawks in Wascana Centre. This is 0/K's nest (the male we banded in 2006).
O/K and his unbanded mate (we were unable to catch her this year...) were successful in fledging 4 young Cooper's Hawks out of the nest. We banded the young birds (o/X, 5/P, 5/V, 5/E) on July 19th.
Unfortunately, 0/X did not make it after leaving the nest. He was found dead on the ground near the nest on Aug 4th. It is unclear why he died as we watched him flying around about a week after we banded him and cause of death was not determined by our observations.

The other three girls have been hanging around still but seem to be moving further from the nest each day. They are likely being fed infrequently by their parents (if at all still) so are having to capture their own prey now.

Randy McCulloch and his friend Boyd, came down to Wascana Centre and were able to snap some good pictures of the young females with their red leg bands flying around. Here are two of those photos. Can you read their red leg bands? These are both Randy's photos. A special thank you to him for letting me post them here.

This photo I was able to snap on July 31st. The young birds were milling about on this gloomy day waiting for a prey delivery by mom or dad. I heard the male give his single "cak" call as he approached the nest area. As soon as the young birds heard this they all flew over to the tree where the male had just landed and 5/P grabbed the meal first! She allowed me to get quite close and watch as she gobbled down this Robin.

More colour banded Cooper's Hawks

2009-07-28T22:09:00.004-06:00

Cooper's Hawk banding season always comes fast and flies by! We have a fairly short window of opportunity to band the birds because they leave the nest in only 28-34 days! We like to have the young birds old enough that you can precisely sex them, but not too old that they leave the nest prematurely. 2009 proved to be our best year so far in terms of the number of Cooper's Hawks banded for this project. Due to the loss of our owl earlier this spring, after never fully recovering from his initial injuries that brought him into human care, we were forced to use a mounted Great Horned Owl.

Using this mounted owl I was amazed when we caught 13 adults at 9 nests. I think the trap failed only three times, when the birds were able to detect the net and refused to come in close enough to the trap. This surpasses all of our previous years of banding adults by far! I think our highest number of adults in one year was 6.

(Adult Cooper's Hawk banded near Roche Percee)

We also banded 21 young COHA this year as well. Some of them got colour bands, while others did not. I was actually running out of colour bands, which is why some did not get any.

We did not find anything unusual in terms of brood sizes or anything like that. None of the adults that we caught were banded.

We did have three re-sightings of birds we banded in previous years. As posted earlier 0/K returned to Wascana Centre again this year for his 4th year here. He and his still unbanded mate raised 4 young chicks, who I saw all yesterday all out of the nest. I will post more on their progress in the next couple of weeks. The female we banded near Craven last year returned for here second year since we banded her. Her leg was too big to put the colour band on her, but we were able to see her aluminum band on her left leg and are confident this is the same bird. Lastly, the female we banded down near Roche Percee last year returned for her second year since we banded her as well. We initially thought that she had been unable to attract a mate this year but turned out just to be a late nester. We did catch her mate this year though.

We banded Cooper's in Moose Jaw, near Mortlach, Regina, Craven, Estevan, Saskatoon and near Prince Albert. So make sure you watch for red colour banded Cooper's Hawks!!! And if you see any please contact me!

A special thanks to the folks who helped find COHA nests and helped us band, including Kathy Hedegard, Larry Preddy, Rocky Marchigiano, Martin Gerard, Marten Stoffel, and Harold Fisher!

(Kathy releasing a Cooper's Hawk)

A little bit different - Canada Geese?

2009-07-27T22:11:00.006-06:00

Normally, I have raptor banding stories. Today is a little bit different.

Earlier this spring I took a job with Wascana Centre Authority in Regina. This is the organization that looks after one of the largest urban parks in North America, Wascana Park.
I am the new year round Park Naturalist at Wascana Centre.

I am involved with everything that is wildlife related. One the most enjoyable parts of my job is teaching people about the environment right in the middle of our city. Watch for the interpretive program at Wascana to take off in the next year!

But enough about that. Another part of my job is trying to manage the Canada Goose population in Wascana Centre. Canada Geese (CAGO) love the park. It is relatively predator free during the breeding season, except for a few ambitious mink and a couple of foxes. But also there is a lot of food (ie grass) and people love to feed them! This equates to a whole lot of geese nesting in the park, raising a whole heck of a lot more geese that tend to survive each year. In a more natural habitat, many of the young birds would not survive, whereas almost all of the young survive in the park.

To help mitigate the goose population and reduce the number of human/goose conflicts we move a large majority of the birds up north. This year we moved ~908 CAGO up to Cumberland House Lake, roughly 7 hours north of Regina. Because the birds are flightless at this time of year we can gather up large groups of the birds and transport them to a different location.

To learn more about how many geese return to Wascana from Cumberland House next spring we banded all 900 geese! What a job! It turned out to be a lot more work then I expected. Each goose must be age, sexed and banded. Geese, like all other waterfowl, are unlike all other birds, in terms of their sex organs. All birds have a cloaca, a hole at the end of their digestive tract that serves as an excretion point for feces and urine, but also an exit or entry point for sperm. In most birds the males cloaca simply swells to aid in depositing his sperm. In waterfowl, however, males actually have a penis, that can be popped out of the cloaca and used to pass sperm to the female.
To end this story, each goose must be turned up-side down and examined to see if it has a penis or not.... Now I will reiterate, we sexed, aged and banded over 900 geese for the round up!!!

We also have been catching and banding some of the ~200 birds that were left in Wascana after the round-up. We hope to get a better idea as to which birds have a great return rate, birds we took to Cumberland House or those left in Wascana. So far we have banded 1069 Canada Geese from Wascana Centre! But just today I still saw some birds without bands!

We use a size 8 band on the Canada Geese we have here. This is the same size as a Great Horned Owl or Great Gray Owl. The difference is though that we do not use a lock-on band like we do with raptors. This is because CAGO do not have a bill capable of removing the band, so we don't have to worry about the lock-on part. Geese legs are more narrow and long and we actually mis-shape the bands slightly to allow for a more comfortable fit.

The geese used to be banded years ago as part of the round-up, but banding ceased in 1993. Ironically, earlier this year I noticed a banded goose inside the Display Ponds (the fenced area just east of the Conexus Art Centre). I convinced a few kids who were feeding the birds to feed this particular bird and I was able to read the band number off its leg. It turns out it was banded in 1993 as a young bird, incapable of flight. That makes that bird 16 years old! Interestingly, we have not encountered that individual while banding the 1069 geese this year! Where did she go? Does she know to get out of the area for round up? Interesting stuff.

So the next time you are walking around the park and see a Canada Goose, think about the fact that that bird might just over 20 years old! Lorne Scott's oldest recovered goose he banded was 28 years old when it was found!!!

All for one, and one for FEHA (pronounced 'FEE-HAW')

2009-07-04T13:36:00.005-06:00

This goofy little line is something my Herbert/Morse crew came up with... well truth be told it was Randy alone who came up with it. As corny as it sounds it has stayed with us over the last year as we work toward a better understanding of Ferruginous Hawk population trends in Saskatchewan.

Whenever we need a little boost, for example finding a hawk nest blown out of a tree with dead chicks on the ground, or climbing a tree that is kind of dangerous, or drilling a hole in rock hard clay to install a FEHA nesting platform, one of us calls out "All for one, and one for FEHA!".

As we travel around Saskatchewan and meet landowners and teach them about the ecological and economic value of having these hawks around, I hope that we are slowly but surely increasing the number of folks who are 'for FEHA'.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the landowners who allow us to access their land and study these beautiful hawks. Without you this project would not be possible! Whether its simply allowing us on your land, or you showing us where the hawks are, or just coming out to see the hawks with us, we appreciate your kindness every step of the way.

I am always amazed at the generosity and warmth that comes from every person we meet from across our province. There seems to be a genuine interest and desire to look after these hawks and make sure they are here in the future. I think conserving these hawks is important not only because of the benefits they bring to landowners through their proficient gopher consumption, but also just because they are such a brilliant part of the prairie ecosystem. There is not a more breath-taking sight then an adult Ferruginous Hawk flying over at sunset, calling to the vast expanse of native prairie below. Unfortunately this is a decreasingly common sight in Saskatchewan as more native prairie is lost under the cultivator. We have to travel to the small pockets of native prairie pastures in Saskatchewan to experience this now.

Once again, I'd just like to say thanks to all the landowners and friends who aided us this summer!! We couldn't have done it without you! Thanks for taking care of these hawks!

Banding Ferruginous Hawks

2009-06-23T21:24:00.006-06:00

Over the last two weeks we have been crossing all over southern Saskatchewan banding Ferruginous Hawks. This is my favourite time of year!!!

Just like everything this spring, Ferruginous Hawks are about a week or two later than usual. By this I mean that for this time of year the young birds are about a week or two younger than I would expect at this time.I have not crunched all the numbers yet, but preliminary results suggest that FEHA are doing quite well this year! We are finding a number of nests with 5 chicks, which is a big clutch for any hawk!Last year we placed blue aluminum bands on FEHA in the Bitterlake/Maple Creek area. This year we are placing alpha-numeric blue aluminum bands on FEHA from Maple Creek to Estevan. These bands allow us in future years to be able to identify our banded birds using a spotting scope or binoculars. This year we have noticed 4 banded adult FEHA's. If these birds had alpha-numerics on their legs we would know where exactly where and when they were originally banded. To find out where these birds were banded we have to catch them, which is not easy!One reason these hawks are doing so well, I believe, is because there are so many Richardson's Ground Squirrels around. These birds are ground squirrel specialists! Interestingly we have only found only 3 different kinds of prey items in the nest. Below is a photo of what we found in one nest and represents the items we have found: Richardson's Ground Squirrel, Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel, and Northern Pocket Gopher.
A family of Ferruginous Hawks will eat over 500 Richardson's G.S. during the summer!! As a landowner, you want Ferruginous Hawks nesting on your property! Just imagine if the Ferruginous Hawks that were nesting on your land were scared off and didn't raise their young on your land... 500 ground squirrels would be able to survive. Now imagine how many ground squirrels can be produced by 500 ground squirrels. A female ground squirrel can have 5-6 young. So assuming that 250 of the 500 ground squirrels are females, producing 5-6 young each, you will have 1250-1500 new ground squirrels produced that year. Now, in the following year, how many more young will be produced by 500-750 new young females? So you can see how beneficial these guys are to have around!!

Here is one of the more interesting nests we banded at this year. We found this nest in 2008 and it was active again this year.

There will be more to follow on Ferruginous Hawks.

Great Horned Owl Banding

2009-06-07T12:23:00.007-06:00

(My cousins, Rylie and Hunter, holding a young Great Horned Owl)

This post is a little bit late, but I hope you will all forgive me.

For the last few weeks we have gotten out to a few Great Horned Owl nests to check how many chicks were in each nest and band the young birds. Along our way we met a number of great landowners who were genuinely interested in the owls that were nesting in their yard or on their land.

This year I decided not to do very much Great Horned Owl banding, but instead have focused more of my time on searching for Ferruginous and Cooper's Hawk nests. This has actually worked out for me since I have found many more Cooper's nests than I have in previous years.

One thing we have noticed from the few nests of GHOW's that we banded this year, was they were fairly late in their development compared to last year. Chicks should be able to fly by now and many of the nests we visited still had a week or two before that was going to happen. So it would appear the harsh winter, and cool wet spring delayed the bird's nesting schedule.

A special thanks to a few folks. A family just south of Regina phoned me about a month ago to let me know they had an active GHOW nest in their yard. The two young girls of the family were very excited about the owl nest and kept close tabs on the young owl. We got out to band the little guy a couple of weeks ago. The girls got to hold the owl after a little bit of encouragement and were surprised at how soft it was. The family also noted they had had very few mice around their yard, supporting the fact that GHOW are great micers!

We also met two landowners down in the Riceton area who led us to two nests in their area. We were able to capture the 3 chicks in two nests and band them.

Lastly, I made it out to Herbert to band a few owls and a kestrel with the outdoor education class offered at the school. This is the same group who visited me for Saw-whet banding last fall. We had a great time catching a few birds. I think all the students enjoyed the outing, despite their reservations at first.

Thanks to all the people who helped find nest, watched me climb trees (ready to rush me to the hospital!) and just shared their enthusiasm with us of these great hunters of the night.

(Kristen, Jim Nordquist, and Lorne Scott)

(Maia and Trevor Herriot, Lyle and Micheal Saigeon)

(Young Great Horned Owl in a defensive posture)

To Last Mountain Bird Observatory

2009-05-27T18:07:00.006-06:00

This spring and last fall I have been helping band songbirds at the Last Mountain Bird Observatory (LMBO) which is situated at the north end of Last Mountain Lake between Govan and Nokomis, Saskatchewan.

LMBO is a fantastic little banding station nestled in the Last Mountain Regional Park that focuses on monitoring migrating songbirds like warblers, sparrows and flycatchers. LMBO has been in operation for 20 years now, gathering valuable information on migrating songbird population trends.

Kristen and I were up at LMBO the past two weekends and will be there again this weekend. Interestling spring banding at LMBO is fairly quiet compared to fall banding. Spring is unique though because we catch many of the warblers and other species in their bright, bold breeding plumage, which is very cool to see! Unfortunately, overall daily captures are significantly lower then in the fall. So we don't catch many birds but they are pretty when we do!

If you have an opportunity to visit LMBO I would strongly encourage it. Nature Saskatchewan currently manages LMBO and you can get more information from their website. I am also one of two editors of the Black-and-white Warbler Newsletter which is a publication that highlights what is being caught at LMBO and in general what is going on. There is information there regarding dates that banding is happening and lots more.

Here are a few birds we have captured the last few days I was out.

Brown-headed Cowbird - Male

Tree Swallow

Yellow Warbler - Male

Gray Catbird

Common Yellowthroat - Male

Eggs have been laid

2009-05-06T15:45:00.007-06:00

On Monday evening (May 4), Kristen, and I, along with our friends Darla and Mattea headed out to check on a few of our American Kestrel boxes. We had an enjoyable evening and managed to capture a few adult females.

(Here is Mattea with one of the female American Kestrels,

before we placed the bird back in the box)

In total we checked 3 boxes. Two of the boxes contained 2 eggs (so the females are still laying) and to our surprise, one of the boxes contained 6 eggs!

At this time last year, all the clutches were completed, so the birds seem to be quite behind in their nesting season (except for the six clutcher). This is likely due to the cold spring we have had. Here is a photo of the 6 egg clutch.

As described before, American Kestrels lay on average 4-5 eggs. The female will lay the first 4 typically without beginning incubation. Once the 4th (usually out of 5) egg is laid the female will begin to incubate. Then a day or two later, the last egg will be laid. This means that when we go to band the chicks later in June, four of the chicks will be roughly the same size having hatched on the same day typically, and one will be a little bit smaller having hatched a day or two later.

It will be interesting to see how the relative age of the chicks compare in the 6 egg clutch. Did the female begin incubating after the 4th egg was laid or the 5th?

When incubating eggs, female birds (typically the sex who primarily incubate the eggs, but not always) lose the feathers on their belly and at the same time their skin on these bare spots becomes loose and very fluidy. This helps the skin sort of wrap around the eggs, to maximize the amount of heat that can be transferred from adult to egg. American Kestrels develop 3 such brood patches. One develops on their lower belly, and two on their sides closer to their "armpits". In most monomorphic species (males and female look identical) the brood patch can be used to determine if the bird is female. However, in some species males develop a full or partial brood patch as well! In kestrels, males can develop partial brood patches.

Here is a photo of the medial brood patch on one of the kestrels we caught the other day.

O/K is Back!

2009-05-04T22:04:00.003-06:00

We have been watching Wascana Park closely for the return of our pair of colour banded Cooper's Hawk. We banded the male (red band O/K) and the female (3/A) in Wascana Park in 2006 at their nest. In 2008 the pair were together at another nest in Wascana.

We were anxiously awaiting their return this year.

Finally one of them showed up on Thursday last week! We were beginning to worry that they both had perished and no one was going to return.

On Thursday morning, we found O/K breaking sticks off of a tree and flying up to add them to his nest. He then flew from the nest and landed ontop of a female, who we hadn't seen yet, and copulated with her. After this, he continued his work of breaking off branches and adding them to the nest, as his mate watched.

We moved closer to see if we could see if the female was banded. After getting a really good look at her legs, we concluded that she was not banded. So 3/A has not returned.... yet, perhaps. We are not sure if she has died, or if she has moved to another territory with another male, or is still migrating.

Regardless, O/K is back in Wascana for his 4th summer with a new mate! Exciting stuff, if you ask me!!

This is a photo of O/K when we first captured him in 2006.

A mix of everything in one day!

2009-04-26T15:05:00.010-06:00

Yesterday Kristen and I had a day of many adventures, involving many species of raptors, as well as a few other events.

We started out with our friend Kathy Hedegard in Estevan for an early morning Cooper's Hawk (COHA) survey. We were up at 4:15 AM and on site by 5:20 in the Souris river valley. Cooper's Hawks are notoriously secretive birds. Most birders observe them flying high in the air, flying away after being startled from a tree or if they are lucky, will have seen one sitting on their fence watching the tasty little birds at the feeder. There is one time of the year when COHA are vocal - at dawn during the pre-incubation period (ie. when the birds have just arrived at their nest site and are building the nest). So this is why we were out so bloody early!

We had success finding a single bird at one of our active sites last year. We were unable to see if it was banded but it was good to see one of the adults had returned! Last year we banded the female at this nest, 3/X, which I posted about last July. Hopefully when we go back later in May we will be able to ID her, if Kathy doesn't ID her first.

We then went over to another site where Kathy's cousin, Mr. Larry Preddy had seen COHA a few days prior. Success!! We found the pair of hawks and found a newly added to nest.

(You can see the pair of Cooper's Hawks, one on the bottom of the photo, and one high up on the branch. Larry snapped this as he walked by on his morning walk.)

During a little searching in a campground near Estevan we also noticed four Broad-winged Hawks, roosting in a couple of trees. They seemed to just be getting active when we found them. One bird was sitting right beside the road when we drove by and so we decided to set our trap for it and waited to see if we had any luck. Well what do you know, he went for the bait and we had him caught!

(Adult Broad-winged Hawk)

I had never banded a Broad-winged Hawk before, so it was really neat to get to handle one. It was a beautiful bird, but way smaller then I thought they would be. Flying in the air they look large, but this guy was a tiny little thing. Weighed only 422 grams.

(Larry releasing the newly banded Broad-winged Hawk)

On the way home we stopped to watch a few kestrels and had some luck catching some around Estevan.

(Adult male American Kestrel)

Lastly, we stopped in Weyburn to visit with Kelly Kozij. Kelly informed us he had a Great Horned Owls nest that had chicks that were quite old already, we estimated ~3.5 to 4 weeks! He asked if we had time to assist him on this nest. Of course we had to oblige. So off we went. Kelly masterfully climbed up a fairly difficult poplar tree, roughly 40 feet tall, and banded the 2 young owls. In the nest were the remains of two American Coots. Both adults were very agitated with Kelly's presence and one came in to strike but veered off at the last moment.

(Kelly banding one of the nestling Great Horned Owls. You'll notice the helmet Kelly is sporting. We have been hit a number of times by angry adult owls. Some banders, have lost eyes!)

(This isn't the crispest photo, but I like how it shows how large the white throat patch is on this clearly angry momma. When agitated Great Horned Owls puff their throat, as you can see!)

We packed our stuff up again and were back in Regina by 10:00 pm. A long day, similar in length to our Northern Hawk Owl banding trip but not as many kilometers. All in all we had a fantastic time and got to see and handle some cool birds, and got to visit with some great folks!

Kestrels are everywhere!

2009-04-21T21:47:00.005-06:00

Some American Kestrels are still migrating, and some already have eggs!

Five of our nine boxes around Regina have pairs of kestrels hanging around. I went out to Edenwold today and of the four new boxes we put up this spring, three of the boxes had some activity at them!

I did a loop of all the boxes today and I only saw the males at the boxes around Regina. I believe the females have begun laying eggs. On April 23, last year, a number of the females had already laid their full clutch of five eggs! So its likely some of the pairs have started, or are finished laying eggs. We will be checking the boxes in a week likely, so there will be photos of eggs soon.

In the last few days we have had some good success capturing kestrels. So far we have caught 7 adult birds.

Here are a few photos we've got over the past few days.

Adult male American Kestrel

Close up of male kestrel wing

Female American Kestrel

Our friend Sheila, releasing her first kestrel ever!

Kestrels are back

2009-04-15T22:55:00.003-06:00

It was a gloomy cloudy and rainy day here in Regina today. After work the rain subsided for a couple of hours so Kristen and I decided to go for a drive and see what was happening at our kestrel boxes.

We have about 10 boxes set up around the city. Last year we had 7 of the boxes raising little kestrels. Naturally, we are curious to see how many birds show up and use the boxes this year.

I have read in other studies of kestrels that the same birds typically do not return to the same box year after year. In other words, there is a high turn over of kestrels using the same box over a number of years.

Last year we were able to capture all 7 of the females at each of the boxes. It will be interesting to see if any return.

So far this spring, 5 of our boxes are active. The first male kestrel arrived back on March 27, and his mate showed up the next day! In contrast, tonight we saw a single male for the first time at another one of the boxes. So they are still arriving.

This evening we were able to capture two kestrels, one male and one female! The female we found not at one of our boxes but sitting on a telephone pole enroute between boxes. The male we captured was at one of our boxes, the first time we have seen activity at this box. Last year though, this pair was fairly late in nesting compared to the rest of the birds, so perhaps its the same birds? We did not see the female and unfortunately we did not band any males last year so don't know if he is the same bird.

She was a little damp from the rain but was in a fierce mood nontheless.

Banded Hudsonian Godwits

2009-04-13T22:48:00.006-06:00

We are patiently waiting for many of the birds to come back before we can do much banding this summer. As such, we haven't actually banded anything in a while.
I came across this article today which I thought was really interesting.

I do not band Hudsonian Godwits but some banded godwits might come through Saskatchewan so people should be aware of this.

Watch for Hudsonian Godwits with colour bands!!

Check out this article -

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/help-solve-the-mystery-of-hudsonian-godwit-migration

First Ferruginous Hawk sighting of 2009

2009-03-20T23:14:00.005-06:00

One of my fearless scouts in Morse observed a pair of Ferruginous Hawks on Mar 15, the earliest sighting this year, and a day earlier then the first sighting in 2008.
Lori Wilson observed these birds at a nest that has been used for many years and has fledged a lot of chicks! However, the nest that has been used for so many years appears to have fallen out of the tree sometime this winter or earlier in the fall!

Already these two birds are rebuilding a new nest, and building quite rapidly at that. Lori described and photographed at least one of the birds flying to a live poplar tree, breaking off branches and flying back to the nest with these branches. In just a day the birds had already made an impressive start to the nest! (seen below)

Within a couple of weeks, most, if not all, of the Ferruginous Hawks will be back in the province and another summer will be upon us!

Thanks to Lori for the photos!

An adult FEHA carrying a stick it has just pulled off a live tree.

The adult hawk is sitting on the right side of the largest tree in the middle of the photo. The new nest they are building is just above, and to the left of the middle power pole.

A new member of the banding crew!

2009-03-17T21:12:00.003-06:00

Part of my banding project involving Cooper's Hawks, is to capture the adults. To do this we need some help - we require a special member of the banding crew, who Cooper's Hawks despise! We need a Great Horned Owl.

A while ago, I inquired to the Vet college in Saskatoon, to see if they had a GHOW that was not releasable and that needed a home. They didn't have a candidate at the time, but last week I received a phone call that an owl that met the criteria was available if we were still interested.

After getting all the proper permits in line (you need special permits to have an owl!) we drove up to Saskatoon on Sunday to pick up the owl.

This is where we met this guy (seen below). He originally was found near Moosomin, SK, with a broken leg. After being brought to the vet college, he underwent surgery on his leg. The surgery was a success and his leg healed nicely, but the vets later realized that the owl had extensive scarring on his retina in his left eye. They estimate he has 60-70% vision loss in this eye. What this means is that the owl has no or very little depth perception. So when he tries to grab a mouse to eat, he usually doesn't catch it, because he grabs at the wrong spot. Left on his own in the wild, he would likely starve to death. He is a young bird, hatched in 2008, therefore he hasn't been independent for very long, and was already quite thin when he arrived at the clinic.

So now he lives at the Display Ponds in Wascana Centre, in a nice large pen. We weren't sure what to name the bird, he did come with a name but we wanted to give him a name of our own. Due to his surgery, the vets had to shave his broken leg bare, just leaving some feathers around the foot of the bird. We decided on the name "Boots", since it looks like he's wearing a feathered boot on his left leg. Eventually the feathers will grow back, once he molts again which might not be for a while, maybe not until October!

Hopefully, Boots and I will be able to visit some classrooms in the future, but for now we are just working on getting him use to being in captivity. We'll let you know how Boots does this coming summer!

Spring cleaning

2009-03-15T00:21:00.005-06:00

Finally, the cold weather has ceased and it feels like spring might actually come to Saskatchewan this year!! Taking advantage of the balmy weather Kristen and I zipped out to our American Kestrel boxes around the city and did some spring cleaning. We opened up the boxes and pulled out the old cedar chips and replaced them with fresh new chips. We also replaced a few boxes that needed repair, as well as added a few new boxes to our kestrel box trail.

All in all it was a fun way to spend a Saturday in the sun!

I am always amazed at how dirty the inside of the kestrel boxes get! Something you don't think to much about when your talking about regular stick nests is the mess in the nest - typically there really isn't any! This is because the young birds very early on, know that when they poop they are suppose to shoot it over the edge of the nest. Then the adults also remove any pellets the young birds regurgitate. In a nestbox or natural cavity with kestrels though, can the young birds really poop over the edge of the nest?... not really. They seem to have the same sort of drive to poop over the edge but with the side of the box right there, it doesn't really work. And well, when you open up the box, or take a look at the photo below you can see what I mean. Usually the sides of the box are plastered with bird droppings! Sometimes its even on the inside roof of the box!!! I'm not entirely sure how they aim it all the way up there! The parents also, do not seem to clean the box of regurgitated pellets either. Overall, kestrel boxes are messy!

Anyhow, just something to think about! It won't be long before the birds will be back and using these boxes.

A Northern Hawk Owl Bonanza

2009-02-17T19:20:00.009-07:00

Yesterday, Kristen and I decided to use our family day to go for a drive. Just how far we were going to drive we didn't know, we just knew that we wanted to see an owl of the north.

So we set out at 6:00 am, so we could be in the northern country before noon.

To give a way a bit of the story to begin with, we travelled 1,050 km and made it home to Regina by 10:30 pm. We only spent half an hour out of the vehicle during that time!

It wasn't until we had been searching for four hours, driving for 6.5 hours that we found our first owl, a Northern Hawk Owl! Only the third hawk owl I have ever seen. Kristen spotted it as we cruised along the road. We stopped, and reversed, just in time to see the owl take off, bee-lining it for a large spruce tree. It shot out its legs and tried to take something out of the tree. It dropped down into the bush below, and we never saw it again! Even though it was a quick sighting, we were pleased to have even seen an owl after six hours of driving.

We continued on our way and soon enough (~15 km) we had found another Hawk Owl! We couldn't believe it! This time he sat tight and allowed us to get all set up.

After a little while we had this amazing little owl in our hand!

Onward we went after letting this one fly off, which you can see here.

Our luck was absolutely amazing, we came across not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5 more Hawk Owls during the course of the day!!! We found 7 hawk owls in total. We were absolutely giddy with our luck. There was one slight cause for disappointment (if I'm even allowed to be disapointed after finding 7 Hawk Owls). We had only received three bands specially sized for Hawk Owls before we left on our little impromtu trip and therefore could only band the first three hawk owls. So we only could look at the last 3! I had mentioned prior to our trip to Kristen that I hoped we could find atleast one owl during our trip. I would not have imagined we would find 7, so wouldn't have thought to bring more. Oh, well, we did get 3!

Once in the hand, we weighed the birds and took measurements of the wing chord, tail and culmen. We also assigned an age to it, based on similiar features of the saw-whet owl which I have discussed here before. With a new band around their leg, they are quickly back to hunting for mice in the snow.

Hawk Owls and Great Grays are highly adapted to catching mice and voles during the winter. We watched a hawk owl yesterday hovering over a bank of snow, and instantly dive deep into the snow, leading with its outstreched talons. He sat there for a second like a toddler that has just been thrown helplessly into a deep snow pile. Then he sprung out of the snow, empty handed and kept on hunting. Most of the time, Hawk Owls use their speed to catch their prey, by plucking them off the ground. These things are amazingly fast, thanks to their more hawk-like wing (better adapted for speed and actually not silent like other owls), which are so fast in fact that the poor little mouse really doesn't have a chance once these owls have them in their sights.

All in all it was a fantastic day! We notified Harold of the 3 owls we saw but did not have bands for, so hopefully he will make it out and find them. Interestly, we didn't see a single Great Gray Owl during the course of our 1000 km trip. Ironically, Harold Fisher tells me he has only seen 3 Hawk Owls in his area this entire winter, so we were very lucky!

The Mystery of the Banded Tropical Mockingbird

2009-02-11T21:05:00.005-07:00

Now don't get all excited, no one in Saskatchewan has seen a Tropical Mockingbird. I thought I would share this neat story, because I learned something about banding in North America from it.

I recently was in Mexico for a family vacation. We stayed at a resort south of Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula. It was amazing to see so many tropical birds, from Magnificent Frigatebirds, Great Kiskadees, Yucatan Jays, to Squirrel Cuckoos. It was also a real treat for me to get to see some of the warbler species we see in Saskatchewan during the breeding season, but there they are on their wintering grounds. We saw Black-and-white, Magnolia, Yellow, Common Yellowthroat and American Redstarts.

One bird that was ubiquitous everywhere we went was the Tropical Mockingbird (TRMO)! This bird is slightly different from the Northern Mockingbird folks here in SK might be familiarly with, but not much at all.

These guys were everywhere around our resort!

One morning as we were leaving the restaurant area, we noticed a TRMO sitting in a tree. We had our binoculars with us, so had a look at the bird. Well, to our surprise it was wearing a band around its leg!!! I couldn't believe it! What are the chances!?!?!

(Can you see the band on the birds left leg?)

We observed the bird for a few moments and then carried on.

Being slightly obsessed about banding, Kristen and I decided to go back a few days later and see if the bird was still around. We had noticed that TRMO's seemed to stay in the same areas each day, likely individuals on something of a territory.

Sure enough the bird was right in the same place as we had seen him three days prior.
This time we had brought the spotting scope. Miraculously, the bird sat in the same spot for 15 minutes as we made a 360 degree circle around it with the spotting scope and read the band combination right off the band.

To our surprise, the band number included letters - "RSK4557" to be exact.
We recorded all the pertinent data - location, data, status of the bird - and continued on our way.
Once we returned to Regina the next day, the quest to find where this bird had been banded was on!

I started by contacting the bird banding office to see what they could tell me. Interestingly, I found out that the BBO does not supply Mexican banders with bands for birds that do not migrate into Canada or the United States. Therefore Mexican banders must have the bands they are going to use on tropical resident birds (like Tropical Mockingbirds) custom made. Therefore, the BBO does not have any record of this band, since it is not a BBO band. They tried to do a search for a bander who might band migrant birds in that area, but with no luck. So how am I suppose to find the mexican bander who banded this bird if the BBO doesn't know!?

Luckily, a friend of mine, Steve Davis, who works for Canadian Wildlife Service was in Mexico the week after I arrived home! He was actually teaching Mexican banders how to catch and band grassland songbirds. I quickly sent him an email, unsure if he would have internet access where he was. Thankfully, he did! He passed the information onto his collegues and they responded with two possible emails for me to contact.

Unfortunately, I have not heard anything back from the two organizations who I sent the banding information to. So as it stands I do not have the mystery solved. Hopefully something comes through soon! I couldn't believe that on my trip to Mexico I would find a banded bird!
If I solve the mystery of the banded Tropical Mockingbird, I will surely post the answer here!

Recapturing a Banded Great Gray!

2009-01-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

We were very excited when we captured our first Great Gray Owl with Harold Fisher this past weekend. We were even more excited when we realized it was already banded! We were then even more excited when we found out when and where this bird was originally banded!

This girl (we think), weighed in at 1274 g, with a wing chord length of 441 mm.

Can you see in the picture how some the flight feathers (the largest feathers on the wing used to fly) are different shades of grey, some are even brown? This means that this bird has different generations of flight feathers, which is a technique that is used to age certain species of birds (this has been mentioned before with saw-whets).

Based on the number of feather generations in the wing of this bird, we estimated that this bird was atleast 3 years old.

Well, were we surprised to find out later that day that this bird was originally banded on 24-Feb-2001! That would be eight years prior to our capture of her. Because she was aged as atleast one year old when she was first caught, we know that this bird is atleast 9 years old! The oldest longevity record for the Great Gray Owl is ~12 years.

Interestingly, she was captured initially only 64 km S of where we captured her!

Recaptures like this are what researchers like Harold are looking for. This data will help us understand movement patterns of these owls between seasons (many seasons in the case of this individual!) and understand population dynamics (how old birds live, the proportion of young birds captured versus older birds captured, etc). It was fantastic to be part of this find!

A Great Gray Experience!!

2009-01-28T22:40:00.001-07:00

Great Gray Owls are one of the most majestic birds on the planet, if you ask me, and it wasn't until just this past weekend that I actually got to see one in the wild!
We joined Harold Fisher of Prince Albert (a local raptor bander) for the weekend as we toured around the countryside to find these huge owls as part of an ongoing banding project. For a number of years now raptor banders have been catching and banding Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls in the boreal forest in an attempt to learn a little bit about these elusive owls.

Harold did not let us down - on our first day we located 4 Great Grays!!

Of these 4 owls we were able to capture 2 Great Gray Owls, plus 1 Northern Hawk Owl - according to Harold this is a good catch in one day! You can drive for hours and hours and not find an owl. Once in the hand, the birds are banded, weighed, measured and photographed. And then quickly released, take a look at Kristen's first time release.

Great Gray Owls hunt primarily small mammals (mice and voles) during the day. You'll notice these owls have very large facial disks (the circular shape around the eyes), which aid in focusing sound into their ears (cup your hand over your ear, you notice you can hear better? This is what the facial disk does). Because of this adaptation Great Grays can hear a mouse below the snow, dive in without ever seeing the mouse and come up with a delicious meal!

While they appear large (they are the largest owl in North America), they are not the heaviest on the continent (Snowy or Great Horned Owls take that prize). Great Gray appear so big because they have so many feather to help keep them warm during the cold winter up north. In the picture below you can see Kristen's hand holding onto the birds legs (the safest way to hold the owl, both for the handler and the owl) - the hand in the glove is actual cold, while the hand tucked up in the owl's feathers are amazingly warm and toasty!

It was amazing to get to see a Great Grey Owl finally! It was even more amazing to get to handle one of these impressive raptors. In the hand, the Great Gray is as docile as a bird can be!

Thanks to Harold, Denise, and Shelley we had a great experience!

Reporting banded birds

2008-11-30T19:36:00.000-07:00

I thought this would be a good time to post about reporting banded birds.

It's really quite simple.

(Young Burrowing Owl chick)

If you find a banded bird you should record the following data:

1) The date you found the bird
2) The band number
3) If you know it, the species
4) The location you found it, as specifically as possible
5) If the bird is dead, how you think it died (ie beside road - hit by a car, below powerpole - electrocuted)

Once you get home you can go to this webpage http://www.reportband.gov/ and report the details here.

This website is regularly being update - just recently they have made it possible for the band finder to input the exact GPS location of where you recovered the bird (in any format UTM, or lat long (decimals degrees, deg min sec)) so if you have a GPS record the location.

(You can also record colour bands to the webpage or phone number. This is a Ferruginous Hawk chick with a blue band along with its aluminum band)

You can also call in the band information by calling 1-800-327-BAND.

(This Burrowing Owl was found just east of Regina near Monica Slough. It has a colour band on its left leg. 83 over M - red band, white letters. It was banded near Milestone the year before it was seen here. You might also notice it has a syringe infront of it... we may have found the reason why burrowing owls are declining so quickly...)

Saw-whets done for another year!

2008-11-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how quickly time flies when you are having fun! We have already completed the third season of saw-whet banding at Edenwold SK! Once all the birds were tallied we captured 157 at my Edenwold site. Kristen, 5 km SE of my site capture 74 owls and Adam at Craven captured 16 owls! I think it is absolutely astounding how many of these small little owls move through the Regina-Edenwold area and no one notices! There has not been a single report of a Saw-whet from anywhere around Regina yet this fall or winter.

We did capture a few birds that were already banded this year at my site. Two of these were banded at the North end of Last Mountain Lake by Mr. Ross Dickson. Another bird was banded by Mr. Dan Zazelenchuk near Kyle, SK. All three of these were banded this year and moved directly to my station. I also captured a bird that was banded at my station in 2007, 3 days less exactly a year.

Kristen did not capture any birds that were banded at more distant stations then mine, but she did capture a few of my birds. Three of these were banded this year and recaptured in her net a few days later. But one of these was another bird from my station, banded in 2007.

It was a good year altogether! Now only 309 days until we start again!

A surprise visitor!

2008-10-28T22:48:00.000-06:00

On 13 October 2008, Kristen and I were very surprised to find the bird below in our nets... a Boreal Owl!! This owl is normally found much further north in the boreal forest and we never imagined we would catch one of these at Edenwold! We were very excited.

Boreal owls are slightly larger than Northern Saw-whet Owls, as you can see by the photo, but interestingly this bird weighed less than a few of the larger saw-whets we have caught this year! Boreal owls mass can range from 90-200 g (this one was 109g) while saw-whets range between 75 to 120 g (that I have caught).

Based on measurement and the lack of a moult limit we think this was a young male. We are not sure why he was down near Edenwold at this time of year but were very pleased we were able to see this guy. This was the first Boreal Owl I had ever seen!

Northern Saw-whet Owls in Edenwold

2008-10-24T21:39:00.001-06:00

This fall we began our third season of capturing saw-whet owls near Edenwold. We began this year on Sept 22 and have been banding every night with good weather.

We are attempting to capture these small owls as they are migrating through the area. We arrive at the farm we are banding at around dusk and open the nets and start our caller. The birds are attracted to the call we broadcast and come into see what is going on. The birds then fly around and get caught in the net. We usually keep the nets open and audiolure calling until about midnight.

To date we have captured 132 owls this fall. This is down from the last two years, which is likely due to the fact that we missed 7 days straight of banding during peak migration time.
The highest number of owls I caught this fall in one evening was 20 owls. The lowest was 0.

(Photo: Size 4 short bands specifically for saw-whets)

This year Kristen, my girlfriend, has been banding at another site ~5 km SE of my site. She has been banding for about half the time that I have spent at Edenwold this fall. So far she has captured 57 owls this fall, which demonstrates that a lot of owls are moving through this area!!

More results to come!

Colour-banded Cooper's Hawks

2008-09-27T22:45:00.000-06:00

One of my favourite projects during July is working with Cooper's Hawks.

These small secretive hawks are not often seen by many people as they sit silently high in trees and watch you walk right by.

Cooper's Hawks are a bird eating raptor, eating birds like pigeons, robins, and sparrows. Adults have blue-gray backs and heads, with a white belly with orangy markings along their breast. They also have long thin bright yellow legs. COHA are cool because they exhibit a high degree of reverse sexual dimorphism. This means that female Cooper's Hawks are usually much larger than the males.

Another species that is very similar to the Cooper's Hawk is the Sharp-shinned Hawk. COHA are larger than SSHA, but small male COHA and larger female SSHA can be fairly close in size. One diagnostic feature if you get a good look at a sitting birds (which rarely happens) is COHA have a distinct grey cap that contrasts sharply with their back. The top of the head of a SSHA is the same colour as its back, so it does not contrast. In the hand, this difference is very evident.

My project with COHA is simple. I trap the adults and band them with special colour bands so that I can identify individuals again without having to recapture the bird. I trap them at their nest so we can learn how if adults come back to the same spot to raise their young and for how long.

For example, seen below on the left is 3/A (her red band number), a female Cooper's Hawk, and on the right is O/K, a male Cooper's Hawk. My mom and I captured these in Wascana Park at their nest in 2006. In 2007 I saw 3/A back in the same area but could not find her nest. But in 2008 I found both 3/A and O/K at a new nest together and they succesfully raised 3 chicks. We will wait and see if they both return in 2009.

We also band the young birds in the nest and observe the nestlings after they fledge (leave the nest). Again we can identify birds as individuals because of the red band so we can tell which chicks stick around the nest after they can fly and for how long.

Installing FEHA nesting platforms

2008-09-24T10:19:00.000-06:00

This year, while banding Ferruginous Hawks (FEHA) around Morse and Herbert we found a few large nests that had been completely blown out of the tree and were destroyed, like the one shown below. We usually found dead chicks littered on the ground around the nest at the same time.

In an effort to create some permanent, reliable nesting locations for FEHA, we decided to install 7 artificial nesting platforms for this species to use - and that's just what we did. Artificial nesting platforms have been used extensively in the Bitterlake PFRA pasture and with great success. Many the platforms we are monitoring were succesful this year.

With the help of Randy, Lori, and Mike from Hebert/Morse, and Lorne Scott and Kristen from Indian Head and Regina, we were able to get all 7 platforms installed in one day.

We assembled the platform part of the nest earlier in Lorne Scott's workshop. On the day we had an auger rented and had acquired 7 large poles from Swift Current. When all was ready we had a full convoy of 2 trucks and 1 van packed to the brim.

We had already made contact with the landowners and proceeded to the designated locations.

While a few of us augered the hole for the pole, others connected the platform to the pole.

Then we hoisted the platform up and into the newly dug hole. The digging of the hole varied from our first hole (in sand) which took 5 minutes to dig through, versus our second hole of the day (in clay) which took closer to 45 minutes. After the first platform was installed we thought this would take no time at all.... until we started the second pole.

Once the platform was up we added lots of sticks, grass and of course, cow manure. We wanted the platform to appear as though a hawk had already nested here before. Why cow manure you ask? Well, we are not really sure why the birds do this, but FEHA regularly place pieces of dried cow manure in their nest. So again, to make it appear as though FEHA's had used this nest in the past we added the manure!

Just in case you are wondering, the Danger sign was brought for aesthetic purposes.

We placed 4 of the nests in areas where this years nest had been destroyed and placed a few nests in spots that are over run with Richardson's Ground-squirrels and no trees or nests are present.

We anxiously await the return of the hawks next year to see how many platforms are used.

The 6 Pack Nest

2008-09-17T14:30:00.000-06:00

In June 2007, Lorne Scott and I went to Morse to band young American Kestrels in nestboxes that local school students had put up in previous years. Here we met the amazing Lori Wilson and Randy McCulloch. After banding the kestrels, I was mentioning to Lori and Randy about how I had been banding Ferruginous Hawks the previous week. The two locals quickly told me about three nests they knew of very close by that they would be pleased to take us to to band.

We made it to the first nest and banded the young with no problems. The nest was in a low (only ~6 feet) Hawthorn shrub. After this nest, Randy had to get home so Lori, Lorne and I continued on our way.

The next nest was the soon to be infamous nest - the Six Pack nest. The tree was dead, but sturdy enough to climb, I felt. From the road (0.5 mi back) we were not 100% confident if this was a FEHA nest or a Red-tailed Hawk nest, since we hadn't seen any adults yet. I decided to take both strings of bands so we could band it either way. I made it up the nest (8.8m above ground) and found FEHA chicks in the nest. So to make less clutter in my pouch I dropped the RTHA bands down. Oops! I dropped the FEHA string!! So I had to hoist up the FEHA bands with the owlovator and began banding the young. At first I thought I was looking at a nest of 5 chicks, but soon realized there was actually a sixth birds sitting behind the fifth chick!

I couldn't believe my eyes!! I had never seen six chicks in a nest before! Of course we didn't bring any cameras out to the nest so poor Lorne and Lori had to walk all the way back to the van and get the camera so we could document this nest. I wasn't sure if this was a big deal but didn't want to miss a photo opportunity like this.

Well it turns out we couldn't find any other published accounts of a nest with six FEHA chicks! This was a first!!

Later in July we returned to the nest and were very pleased to see six fledged chicks take off, one at a time, from the bank of the slough, seen below. We could see they were juveniles and we could see all their bands! They had all survived. In the photo below the nest is on the right side of the tree clump.

I later wrote up this account and it was published in the Journal of Raptor Research 42:152-153.

Contact me if you would like to read a copy of the published account.

Well, understandably we were quite excited to get back to the six-pack nest this year (2008) and see how many chicks were present.

We met up with the local landowner and his family and made our way over to the nest.

Up the old dead tree I went, (I don't think I want to climb this next year), and we found four good healthy chicks.

We were slightly dissapointed about finding only 4 chicks, but were pleased the nest had still produced this many chicks. It's amazing to think this nest has produced 10 chicks in the last two years!!

I will keep you updated to the story of the six-pack nest for years to come!

Ferruginous Hawks -2008

2008-09-17T13:53:00.001-06:00

The Ferruginous Hawk (FEHA) is North America's largest hawk and definetly my favorite bird to study!!

This year FEHA's had an exceptional reproductive year, producing roughly 3.01 chicks per nest. When gophers are abundant (FEHA's favorite food source), which they were this year, FEHA's do very well. A family of Ferrug's have been known to take over 500 gophers in a single breeding season. When you have up to 6 chicks you have to keep all those mouths fed!

This year I banded FEHA around Maple Creek, and between Herbert and Mortlach.

This was the second year of my banding project that is looking at productivity and long-term territory use by FEHA in the Bitterlake area (NW of Maple Creek). For this trip Adam Crosby and Joseph Kotlar joined me and we had a blast.

In this very defined area we banded 77 FEHA nestlings.

One new element to this study is this year we banded the chicks with the regular aluminum bands but we also placed blue aluminum bands on the left leg 0f all the chicks. I hope to collect disperal data by banding with the blue bands - in other words, we know were the chicks grew up, how far away are they found as adults nesting? If one sees an adult with a blue band, we can tell you it came from a very small area and see how far away it is.

Lori Wilson, Randy McCulloch and Lorne Scott also help me find nests in the Herbert/Morse area and of course helped band.

In total I banded, with the help of many voluntters a total of 222 Ferruginous Hawks this year. Thanks to all the folks who help find nests, and band these great hawks.

Below is a dark phase adult FEHA we found at a nest near Piapot, SK. Both the adults at this nest were the dark phase colouration (aka - melano adult). Can you see the aluminum band on the birds right leg? (I know the photo is small but it is banded). This was the second year we found a banded melano adult at this nest, which means that this same bird was here two years in a row.

American Kestrels

2008-08-13T22:35:00.000-06:00

The American Kestrel is Saskatchewan's smallest falcon. It is a very flashy bird. Male kestrels have blue wings and a finely blotted chest, whereas females have dark rusty red back and wings, and a brown streaky chest.

Kestrels are neat because they raise their young in cavities - usually old woodpecker holes. This means that you can attract kestrels by putting up bird houses.

And this is exactly what I did last year. With the help of some friends, I place 9 kestrel boxes around the outskirts of the city.

Early in April I had seen activity at only 2 of the 9 nest boxes.

When I visited the boxes to band the kestrels early in May I checked all of the boxes to ensure that I did not miss a box being occupied. To my surprise I found 7 of the 9 boxes were occupied!!

When we opened the boxes we found females sitting on typically 4 or 5 eggs, a standard clutch size for this species.

All of the boxes fledged atleast 1 chick, none of the nesting attempts failed in the 9 of these boxes around the city. Two boxes that were occupied at Edenwold and Assiniboia were depredated by raccoons. If you are going to erect a kestrel box, it might be a good idea to put a predator guard below the nest to prevent raccoons from access the nest. The raccoon pulled the adult female kestrel right out of the box and killed her.

Overall, though the kestrels appeared to do quite well around Regina this year.

Great Horned Owls

2008-07-10T19:24:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I have last posted on here.... It's been a crazy and wild summer. Up to now I have banded 418 raptors. It's been great, but busy nonetheless.

Over the next few weeks I hope to post numerous times here to fill you in on the events of the summer.

Lets start at the beginning.

Great Horned Owls

We started banding on May 3 and finished banding owls by the end of May. We have caught a few more owls since though.

Our first weekend we spent in Herbert and Morse banding with Randy McCulloch and Lori Wilson. Joseph Kotlar accompanied us for the weekend as well. We had a good weekend, checking 29 nests and banding 47 chicks. Our little adventure that weekend even made it into the Herbert newspaper!!

During May we banded around Regina, Indian Head, Moose Jaw, Chaplin, Craven, Dilke, Carnduff, and Pense.

We found one nest of 4 chicks, but most had a regular sized brood, 2-3 chicks.

Some interesting prey items we found in owls nests included: a Virginia Rail, Northern Pocket Gophers, a Short-eared Owl, a Long-tailed Weasel, and a number of Cottontail Rabbits. One nest was jam packed with prey - 2 Eared Grebes, a Gray Partridge, and American Wigeon, and an American Coot. While another nest had remains of a Short-eared Owl, Lesser Scaup, Green-winged Teal, 2 Blue-winged Teals, and a Northern Pocket Gopher.

This year despite visiting over 65 nests I was not struck by an adult owl. Last year I was hit 3 times at different nests but this year I was not so lucky! I did have some close calls. One female trapped me up in the tree as she made repeated striking attemptings when I tried to climb down an open portion of the tree.

Our most exciting event from GHOW banding this summer would have been on May 4. Joe Kotlar was climbing and banding a nest that contained 2 nestlings. Joe was up in the nest attending to the young, while the female owl was very curious as to what he was doing. At one point she landed within 5 feet of Joe and then flew off. Then a few moments later she came back in and landed within 3 feet of Joe. So I yelled "Joe grab her!". And well.... that's exactly what Joe did. In one shot Joe, like a flash of lightning reached out and grabbed the adult owl in a perfect banders grip around her feet - completely immobalizing her dangerous set of weapons. I couldn't believe!!!

He had actually grabbed the owl! He called down "Jared I can't move, if I do I might lose her." So absolutely pumped on adrenalin I scaled the tree in a few seconds without any gear and took the bird from Joe and placed her in a nap sack, with just her legs and tail sticking out. In the dark like this, birds will calm right down and their stress level decreases (Think of the hood a falconer puts on his falcon - same idea).

Well we are all very excited with the catch. I have never caught an owl like this before, granted I have heard of it being done before by other banders. So get the bird out of the tree and go back to the truck with Lori and Randy and we get all the gear out for banding her, while Joe finishes up in the tree. After a few moments I leave Randy and Lori with the bird and go see how Joe is doing. Randy and Lori soon follow and we discuss where we are going to take our picture with the owl. Joe jumps out of the tree and we celebrate his epic grab! We turn back to the truck, when Lori says "Did an owl just fly from the truck?????"........

I had seen it out of the corner of my eye as well. We rushed back to the truck and sure enough, there lay the empy backpack. No owl. She had escaped..... I couldn't believe it! I think I cried myself to sleep that night. ;)

So the lesson learned here is, under no circumstance, leave a bird unattended!!!!!
It was a hard lesson to learn that day, but a valuable one nonetheless.

Once all the bands were tallied, 141 Great Horned Owls are wearing aluminum bands thanks to me and a number of helpful people who joined me on our adventures.

Remember, if you see a dead bird, or are handling a live bird check for a band!

Nesting season has begun!

2008-03-10T13:35:00.000-06:00

Its that time of year already! The nesting season is beginning for some species.

We headed out last weekend (March 3) and found our first nest of 2008 - it was a Common Raven nest east of Regina. It was a blistery windy day and we were surprised to find it so early.

However, I understand there is a Raven nest in Saskatoon right now with chicks almost ready to fledge (meaning they are ready to leave the nest). This means the birds started nesting in January!!! Very unusual.

This weekend we found 5 Great Horned Owl nests around Regina - so they are beggining to nest!

If you know of any Great Horned Owl nests please email me and let me know so we can include this nest in our banding project.

Passing of a good friend

2008-02-07T20:37:00.001-07:00

It is with great sadness, I write about the passing of a good friend, my Great Horned Owl, Tyke.

Tyke passed away on December 20, 2007, from fungal pneumonia. By the time he showed any symptoms, the sickness was to far along.

He passed away at the veterinary clinic, on his own, as I knelt there beside him.

I looked after Tyke for almost two years. For those who don't know, I received him from the Humane Society on March 29, 2006. When I got him, he had hit a powerline and skinned the inside of his wing very badly. If you had sustained the same injury, go from your wrist to midway up your forearm, take off all the skin, and that's the kind of wound he had.

It took 7 intense weeks of rehabbing to get him back to health, so that the skin wound was healed. However, because of ligament damage Tyke wasn't able to fly properly, preventing him from being released.

After some fight, I was able to get a permit to keep him. His job was to help catch adult Cooper's Hawks. He was very good at his job. He patiently sat on his perch as angry Cooper's Hawks came screaming down on him.

More importantly, I think, Tyke visited and met many people and shared with them the wonder of nature. After seeing him eye to eye, most people responsed with "I've never seen an owl this close before! He's huge! Look at his eyes!"

In his short time with me, Tyke visited a number of class rooms, we presented at a Weyburn Nature Society meeting, the 2007 Yellowhead Flyway Birding Trail Association symposium, at the Regina Public Library, and the Saskatchewan Burrowing Owl Interpretive Centre's Fundraiser Dinner.

During the summer of 2006 he was incorporated into tours given at the Display Ponds in Wascana Centre, and during 2007 was on display and involved in programing at the Burrowing Owl Centre in Moose Jaw.

Tyke saw 4000 people at SBOIC alone this past summer, so I would estimate he met over 5,000 people during his time with me.

He taught me alot about owls and about himself. But I believe he taught many other people about the beautiful life that is out there.

I will miss him very much, but I know now he is free to fly where ever the wind wishes to take him.

Talking about Banding

2007-11-07T21:07:00.001-07:00

Today, Tyke (the Great Horned Owl) and I, visited Mrs. Mehlsen's class of grade 4 students, at McClurg school. We talked about owls in general, and the different kinds you can find around Regina during different parts of the year.

We talked about Great Horned Owls, Short-eared Owls, Burrowing Owls, Snowy Owls, and of course Northern Saw-whet Owls.

What a great group of kids! There were many great questions and they were attentive for the entire presentation.

Tyke and I had a great time!!

If you know of a class or group that would like to have a presentation about raptors (hawks, owls, falcons or eagles) and/or bird banding just email me!

If you are interested in meeting Tyke, we will be giving a presentation at the Central Library (downtown) on Tuesday November 20th at 7:00pm.

Birds are Individuals

2007-10-22T20:48:00.000-06:00

One of the neatest things I learned from banding is that each bird is an individual, and given a certain situation each bird will respond differently. For instance, some Swainson's Hawks will try to take the skin off your head before you get anywhere their nest, where as others will leave the area as soon as they notice you and you won't see them again!

Having handled over 200 Northern Saw-whet Owls now, you can definetly see that each bird is an individual just in their look. Take a look for yourself.

Banding Northern Saw-whet Owls

2007-10-05T21:03:00.000-06:00

The Northern Saw-whet Owl is the smallest owl we have here in Saskatchewan, and arguably the cutest. This owl breeds in the parkland and boreal forests of the province, and during the fall migrates south. They move south in fairly large numbers, but ask any birder, and they likely have only seen a Saw-whet once or twice in their life, if that. This is because these birds are strictly nocturnal and don't become active until the sun has set.

But ask any Saskatchewan owl bander and Saw-whets are one of the most common owls in Saskatchewan based on numbers banded each year. Until a few years ago, Saw-whets have received virtually no attention here in Saskatchewan. That was until a couple of sharp SK banders decided to bring Saw-whet banding to the province.

This fall there are five different stations in Saskatchewan: 1 east of Saskatoon, 1 at Matador, 1 at the north end of Last Mountain Lake, 1 near Prince Albert, and my station at Edenwold (35 min NE of Regina). This fairly geographically spaced group allows the opportunity to study movements of Saw-whets as they migrate, and that is just what we are doing.

In general, Saw-whet migration runs from the third week of September to the end of October. During this time the peak appears to be around the second week of October. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the migration, last year, the five station in Sask caught and banded over 500 Saw-whets during this period.

Once the birds are in the hand we record a bunch of data.

We record wing chord.

Culmen length.

Tail length.

And mass.

We also record age and sex of each owl, and of course the birds are banded.

More about Saw-whets later.

What do to if you find a banded bird!!!

2007-09-13T19:58:00.000-06:00

Firstly, reporting bands is the most important thing you can do if you find a banded bird. If no one reported banded birds then there would be no point in carrying out these projects!!!

So if you encounter a bird, dead or alive, that is banded please take down this information.

1. Record the exact number on the band (If the bird is dead, you can take the bird to the museum if it is in good condition.).

2. Record any other colour bands, and their exact combination (ex. blue over black bottom left leg.).

3. Record the date you encountered the bird.

4. Record the exact location of the bird.

5. Record the species, age, or sex (if you can tell).

6. Record the condition of the bird when you found it (alive, dead, injured, etc).

7. If it is dead, determine the cause of death, if you can.

Once you have all this information, or as much as you can gather, the next step is to submit it.

Its easy!

Either call 1 -800-327-2263 (1-800-327-BAND) or go to this website - http://www.cws-scf.ec.gc.ca/nwrc-cnrf/default.asp?lang=en&n=8D82A45D

All banding data must be submitted to CWS and USFWS as they are the central system for bird banding. Once CWS has received the data, they will pass it along to the appropriate bander.

If you find a banded bird make sure you send in the data!!

The Bird Banders Thank You!!

Turkey Vulture Tagging

2007-09-03T20:58:00.000-06:00

Within the last 30 years Turkey Vultures have been become increasingly common here in Saskatchewan. Normally this species nests in natural caves. You can imagine how many natural caves there are in the prairies.... Today, Turkey Vultures are learning and adapting to fit into the modern day prairie ecosystem. Instead of only using natural caves they are now using old abandoned buildings to nest in, like this one.

Today there are around 100 known Turkey Vulture nest sites in the province, and the person studying these birds is Dr. Stuart Houston, along with his crew: Marten Stoffel, Brent Tarry and Mike Bloom. They are tagging the birds, or placing a cattle-ear-tag-like tag on the nestlings wing so they can track these young birds. They can clip the tag to the birds wing without drawing any blood. The tag is (hopefully) permanent and can be read with binoculars as the bird is perched or flying over.

You might ask why can't you simply band the birds just like we do other birds. Vultures are unique in that to cool themselves they defecate down their legs. Mixed with an aluminum band this creates a build up of cement like substance that can cause lesions on the leg as well as deformities. For this reason, banders are not allowed to place a band on a Turkey Vulture, and patagial tags are the best thing instead. They are flexible and do not cause any problems for the bird as far as we know.

The question behind this tagging program is to try and discover how old Turkey Vultures are when they begin to breed. There is only one record of a Turkey Vulture of known age breeding at 11 years of age, but it is speculated that the birds may start breeding around 6 or 7 years of age. But again this is the question this project is trying to answer.

It is not believed the increase of Vultures in Saskatchewan has any negative effects on the environment. The birds eat dead animals and therefore are great for cleaning up the countryside of dead rotting meat. They are fantastic scavengers!

So make sure you watch for those huge black birds as they soar over the prairies (they have nearly a 6 foot wingspan!) and of course watch for those wing tags!!!!

My first post

2007-09-03T14:40:00.000-06:00

Its the end of summer and its been a great one at that. I was living in Moose Jaw for the summer, working at the Saskatchewan Burrowing Owl Interpretive Centre. Above you can see Sanders, the Burrowing Owl that I imprinted this summer. Basically I got him at 5 days old and raised him until he was 2 months old. He came home with me every night and I was up every hour or so for the first little while! It was the coolest thing ever. Now he stays at the Centre so if you ever want to visit him just stop by the Centre sometime.

I had a busy summer with all sorts of other banding experiences. I helped release the young Burrowing Owls that were raised at the Centre. We released 24 of these cute little guys. However, with a mortality rate of 95-98% in their first year of life, we are not contributing a large number of birds into the breeding population, and this is why we do not consider ourselves a breeding facility.

One of the other fun things I got to tag along for was a trip to the Reed Lake Pelican and Cormorant colony, with Dr. Chris Somers' research team. We colour banded some American White Pelicans and Double-crested Cormorants. I had never banded these guys before, but we caught the pelicans much like we round up geese. The birds were quite large, but not able to fly quite yet. It was amazing to be out on the island, but man did it stink!!!

These two trips were just two of the fun things I got to be part of this summer. There is more to follow, including my own Ferruginous Hawk banding, Great Horned Owls, and also some Turkey Vulture tagging that I got to see.