Owling We Did Go

Let's take a break from the travel posts on this blog, and let me tell you about what Joan and I did Thanksgiving evening. We went owling. That is, we visited Kelly Williams-Sieg and Bob Placier at the Buzzards Roost Nature Preserve Banding Station, near Chillicothe, Ohio, hoping to see a Northern saw-whet owl. In addition to being a bird bander, Kelly is an instructor and PhD student at Ohio University, while Bob is an instructor in the School of Natural Resources at Hocking College.

At Buzzards Roost the permit-holding bird banders deploy mist nets to capture birds for purposes of study. The nets come in various mesh sizes, so the banders need a net with a mesh size suited to the size of the birds they're interested in. To avoid possibly injuring a bird, no netting attempts are made if there is rain, wet snow, or winds above 15mph.

Once captured the birds are measured, weighed, and banded (a small aluminum anklet is placed on the bird). Other banding stations will report to Buzzard's Roost if they catch a bird that had been banded there, and vice-versa. This exchange and accumulation of information allows study of bird populations and migratory patterns. In the autumn, Kelly and Bob study small owls, especially the saw-whet owl, which summers in Quebec and other northern forests. The saw-whet travels at night and is inconspicuous during the day, so little is known about their presence in Ohio: when? how many? how far do they go? (As an aside, let me note that the name "saw-whet" is probably a corruption of the French word for owl, chouette.) 

Joan had attended a public-invited owling night earlier in November, and had a chance to see and hold one of these awwww-inducing bundles. I was away in Fairfield, but another one of the 40 or so visitors took this picture for her:

Kelly was kind enough to invite Joan, and by extension me, to drive down to Buzzards Roost, about 80 minutes away, as a post-feast activity on Thanksgiving evening. Upon arrival at the parking area, I heard an odd, regularly repeating tone. It turns out that the owls are lured towards the nets by broadcasting loud recordings of their calls.

On our first walk in the dark down to the nets we discovered an Eastern screech owl, not a saw-whet, but this was still exciting for us. The screech owl, about twice the weight of a saw-whet, has false ear tufts that give the diminutive beastie a distinctive appearance.

Back at the house, Kelly and Bob prepared to enter the data for our screech owl, which was carried in a mesh sack. In this picture Bob is extracting the owl from the sack, while Kelly prepares a log entry.

Then Bob took some measurements, while the owl's talons still clung to the sack. The screech owl kept its eyes closed or slitted, as if thinking, "If I can't see you, you can't see me."

Once the owl was freed from the bag, the feathers were inspected under ultraviolet light. There is a short explanation of this process here and also here. To briefly quote,

A pigment in owl feathers called porphyrin fluoresces under ultraviolet light, and because it fades quickly with time, the degree of glow gives banders a handy way to age feathers.

A more detailed description of aging the bird by UV light is located here.  Zooming in on our screech owl's wing:

Then it was time to weigh the bird, a process in which the owl was not harmed but lost some dignity.

Kelly and Bob were reluctant to guess at the gender of our owl. For the Eastern screech owl, the average weight of males and females differs by only 8 grams (208 vs. 200).

Then it was time for us to admire our guest. Here, Bob holds him/her, and you can see a band on one leg. It turns out that this owl was captured and banded at this same station three years ago! Now that he/she was no longer being stuffed into cups, the owl's eyes have opened some but not fully.

There were three other visitors to the banding station that night: Tim, who lives close by, and his two sons. One son was the first volunteer to hold the owl.

The owl's behavior is very relaxed, not struggling, as if it were tame. But it is not, it is just waiting for a chance. During the earlier public-invited evening, a saw-whet wasn't held tightly enough by one of the audience, and the owl immediately tried to fly away. It hit a window at low speed and was recovered without harm.

Then I got my chance. The owl felt quite warm to the touch; owls average a body temperature of 104°F.

I snapped this closeup while Joan was holding the owl.

Then the screech owl was placed in a dark room so that his/her eyes could adapt to the dark. Releasing an owl who can't yet see in the dark could result in the owl crashing into an obstacle. When we went down to check the nets for a second time, we took the owl along (in the sack) as we trod down almost to the parking area, where there was more of an opening. It was a moonless light with twinkling stars and the steady beacon of Jupiter, and by this second walk, I was able to walk without my headlamp, navigating by the opening the road made in the trees silhouetted against the sky, and the paler surface of the road.

Kelly handed the owl to one of the sons -- they agreed to take turns releasing owls -- and when let go the owl shot off. It was fast; I never saw it, although others said he passed directly overhead!

The second and third time we checked the mist nets there were no owls. If you're trying to establish how late in the year saw-whets are in Ohio, then you've got to work past the last to find out. Strolling up and down the hill to the nets was a good way to work off some of the Thanksgiving feast, in any case. And I was thrilled with holding my first owl.

We'll be back next fall.