Northern Saw-whet Owl Season Recap!

By: AmeriCorps Avian Field Technician, Santiago Tabares Erices

Our Northern Saw-whet Owl (NSWO) season had a slow start but climbed to new heights. After a few nights with no owls, we captured our first two owls on October 7th. Across 29 nights of banding, we captured 192 owls, representing 169 individuals. Of these, 153 were new birds that we banded, and 14 were “foreign” recaptures from other banding stations, 3 of which we caught twice. So far, we know that one owl was from Steven’s Point, and another one was from Carpenter Nature Center! We also caught 17 “local” recaptures, and caught 3 of those a 3rd time! 

We only captured 1 male this season, along with 159 females and 9 unknowns. The male, our smallest bird of the season, weighed just 77.1 grams, while the "chunkiest" owl was 114.9 grams. This skewed ratio is normal for our station and banding stations across the nation, and new research is trying to find out where the male owls spend the winter. Our Motus station also detected an owl! Tagged in northern Wisconsin, a Saw-whet flew near Beaver Creek on its way to another station in Missouri, where it may spend the winter. 

October 19th was our busiest night, with a new station record 36 owls captured in one night! 

We hosted 3 public programs to share knowledge about the owls of Wisconsin and bird banding, focusing on the research efforts surrounding NSWO. More than 60 people attended! 

8 new volunteers attended our bander training, and our volunteer team collectively put in almost 1,000 hours this season! Some also exciting news, we banded our 2,000th owl since the start of the program here at Beaver Creek in 2004.

Thank you to all our incredibly dedicated volunteers and to the landowners we worked with. It was a wonderful season, we look forward to the next one! If you are interested in getting involved with our Citizen Science Center, visit our website for more information.