Owls, Weather, Owls and More Weather!

As expected, week #2 of the NSWO banding season picked up right from where week #1 ended. Night 8 of the banding season only produced 25 NSWO’s combined between both stations due to some rain showers coming through the area. The following night clear and calm conditions were perfect for owls, and both stations had a combined total of 48 NSWO’s with the majority being banded during the latter half of the night.

Both stations are now starting to see several older owls being banded and a couple of previous years recaptures of RPBO owls have also been caught.

Dorsal (top of wing) of a Second Year (SY) NSWO

Ventral (underside of wing) of the SY under black light illuminating the porphyrin in the feathers. Pink indicates feathers
replaced this year while the pale white feathers indicate retained feathers from last year.

Although we haven’t seen any foreign recaptures (banded at other stations) arrive yet, here’s a wonderful story from Jannaca Chick - Owl Bander in Charge at RPBO. 

A Little Owl’s Travels

Wednesday, September 23rd was my night off for the week. However, I try to maintain my “night owl” schedule by staying up late, and I also monitor the online owl chat in case anyone at our two stations have any questions or issues I can assist with. At 10:40 I noticed that I had a text message from Kristin Mancuso who is the owl bander at Mackenzie Nature Observatory in Mackenzie, BC. Hmmm, interesting … I opened her message which said “We have an older recap NSWO 1124-44609. Is it an RPBO owl?”

Third Year (TY) NSOW caught in MacKenzie BC
 orginally banded at Rocky Point in 2024

Dorsal view of the TY NSWO 

This is why every season I reach out ahead of time to the various owl banders in BC, Washington, Oregon and California. You never know when you could be contacted about a band number that is NOT one of theirs. I tell them to contact me, day or night, because I am usually up until 4:00 a.m. I also contact them if we capture an owl with a band that is not in our inventory, to inquire whose it might be. There are not many owl banding stations in western North America, so we don’t often get what we call “foreign” recaptures, owls banded at another station. Every season RPBO does catch a few of our own banded owls from previous years.

I quickly dashed off a message with this band number to Ann Nightingale who promptly checked our NSWO data submission to the USGS (US Geological Survey) and the Banding Office. We are required to submit our data by the end of every year; that means that the information about all our banded NSWO since the very beginning can be found on their website. Within less than 5 minutes, we had our answer!

USGS Confirmation

Band number 1124-44609 had been banded by me at Rocky Point on October 5, 2024, as a female hatch-year. That means she is now in her third year of life. Needless to say, both Kristin and I were over the moon with excitement! The Mackenzie station is over 1,000 km away from us here on southern Vancouver Island. Who knows where this lovely lady has been since October 2024, but she has obviously travelled far and wide during that time.

 

Mackenzie BC in relation to RPBO (Victoria BC)

The movements of these tiny nocturnal owls are poorly understood. Are they nomadic, are they migratory, where are they going, what are they doing? Where do they breed and where do they spend the winter season? Recapturing owls, whether our own or from other stations, can help us to understand the puzzling movements of these birds. In 2022, I recaptured a hatch-year NSWO that had been banded in Mackenzie a few weeks earlier and then made its way south to get caught in our mist nets. So, we never know what interesting and widely travelled owls we may find at our stations or what interesting messages we might receive in the night!

 

And Then Came the Weather

The owl banding season reminds us that fall is starting to make its way to the south coast and not only do the nomadic NSWO’s arrive but so does the start of a change in the weather. Although week #2 continued to produce good numbers of owls moving through the area, the banding stations lost a couple of nights of banding to rain when the stations didn’t open at all, and another was hampered by wind.

Precipitation (rain) radar heading towards the banding stations.

The Rocky Point station banded 72 fewer NSWO’s than on week #1 but the Pedder Bay station only experienced a decrease of 10 NSWO’s. Typically, the Rocky Point station bands more owls on a nightly basis than Pedder Bay. However, on Sunday September 27^th, Pedder Bay banded 45 owls, almost breaking the station one-night record and nearly twice as many owls than Rocky Point which banded only 29. Pedder Bay had an amazing 10 owls on one net check and 7 on another that night!!

Rocky Point managed to band a 4^th BAOW of the season and it was a very small HY male. A few nights later a Short-eared Owl (SEOW) was observed hunting in the meadow in front of the station in the moonlight. On another night a Western Screech Owl was heard vocalizing near the Rocky Point banding station.

BAOW #4 of the season at Rocky Point

On most nights both stations have been hearing Great-horned Owls (GHOW) around the area, and they have become the “Guardians” of the banding stations at night. Usually when GHOW’s are nearby the BAOW’s tend to leave the immediate area because GHOW are the only known natural predator of Barred Owls.

The number of visitors to the Pedder Bay station increased for the week even though there were a couple nights that the banding was cancelled. Each night that visitors came to see owls they weren’t disappointed and most nights they saw several before heading home.

To register to visit the Pedder Bay banding station to hopefully experience owl banding please follow this link.

https://rpbo.org/what-we-do/community-education/calendar/

 

Jannaca and the owls entertaining the visitors at Pedder Bay

NSWO emerges from the owl bag for the visitors

With week #2 in the books, we are now at 488 NSWO’s banded for the season which is the second highest two-week total on record. The record year of 2017 had banded 726 after two weeks up to this point in time. Still, not bad considering the banding teams lost a few nights due to the weather.

 

There is a huge milestone coming up for week #3 that the banding teams are excited about. As of this past Monday, RPBO has banded 16,984 NSWO’s since the program inception 25 years ago. Only 16 more owls to reach the epic number of 17,000 NSWO’s banded. Which station will get the honour of banding #17,000?? Check back next week to find out!