No Owls Yet (ugg)

Foggy Morning at Red House Lake

I am not banding Saw-whet Owls this weekend because I am out of town at the New York Ornithological Association conference. It should be a good birding weekend and will post more once I return (or sooner if I get some time to write/edit during the conference).

This entry was posted on 5 October 2007 by mon@rch. It was filed under Allegany State Park, Nature, Ornithology and was tagged with discovery.

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9 responses

Laura

Lovely view – hope the owls find you!

5 October 2007 at 10:53 pm

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Larry

Have a great time! I’ll be looking forward to such a convention in CT. over the winter.

5 October 2007 at 11:44 pm

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mon@rch

@ Laura – thanks and just need better winds and less Barred Owls scaring them away!
@ Larry – thanks and I sometimes wish ours was in the winter! This is the worse time for me to going to this! But, almost in my back yard this year!

6 October 2007 at 12:02 am

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nita from red tin heart

I hope you get to see some really neat owls. ~nita~

6 October 2007 at 12:02 am

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Garth N. Baker

They will be waiting your Return from the Convention Tom!

6 October 2007 at 12:26 am

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Bernie Kasper

Have a good time Tom.

6 October 2007 at 10:40 am

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mon@rch

@ Nita – thanks and I did see some good birds!
@ Garth – thanks and I am back!
@ Bernie – thanks was good!

7 October 2007 at 11:36 am

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martytdx

I take it you already heard about the potential irruption of owls and other northern species? If not, check this out:

On a related note, it’s worth noting that throughout much of the east, a phenomenal Saw-whet migration is underway. Several banding stations in Ontario have already broken their all-time record highs for the fall season, and most of them still have a couple of weeks of the traditional season left to go. One site north of North Bay had 133 in a single night a couple of weeks ago! Many of these birds are now making it down as far as southern Quebec and Ontario, and the main wave will soon begin spilling over noticeably into the northern states as well. It appears that the migrants are overwhelmingly (i.e. 95-99%) hatch-year birds, indicating a great breeding year (and likely a bumper crop of voles) up north. Hard to predict how far south these owls will end up going, but at least for the next little while, it wouldn’t be too surprising for a few of them to turn up in unexpected places. – post on JerseyBirds listserv

I’ve also seen forecasts of high numbers of redpolls, crossbills, siskins and grosbeaks. You might be a perfect location to see this – hopefully they’ll make it to Jersey, too.

9 October 2007 at 1:51 pm

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mon@rch

@ Marty – potentail?? Actual irruption year and this (2007 season) has been predicted as an irruption year since October of 2006! It is all focused around what I believe is the red-backed voles and a very predictable cycle! I am on the Saw-whet network listserv and hear about these reports numerous times a day via email! Thanks for the heads up though!

9 October 2007 at 10:09 pm

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