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Archived Postings

September 4, 2006 – September 10, 2006

September 4 to September 10, 2006 Although it is getting late in the fall in terms of bird migration, September can have good days of both bird movement and banding. Unfortunately, not this week. Bird activity came to a halt as only a handful of songbirds were seen each day and a smaller handful were banded. Only 50 birds were banded during the week, most of those were dark-eyed juncos, orange-crowned warblers, and black-capped chickadees. We are seeing a high recapture rate of chickadees; the same group is roving around the area and usually ends up in the nets. Chickadees are great because they give a mobbing call and, for whatever reason, other songbirds usually are attracted to it. So if there are other songbirds in the area, they will often end up in the nets with the chickadees. The first groups of sandhill cranes and greater white-fronted geese were also spotted flying past the banding lab this week. Although it is slow at the lab, the weather was spectacular. So if you can’t be out there to enjoy the birds, at least you can enjoy the beautiful fall. Northern saw-whet owl banding has begun to get busy with 21 banded this week. Nightly banding totals for this time in the previous two years of banding had only one or two owls a night. This week we have had some unexpectedly busy nights, two nights with 7 owls banded. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks. In the past two years, the last half of September was the peak time for owl movement. If the banding totals we have seen this week maintain themselves, it may be a very busy fall. It might also mean that the owls are moving through earlier than the past two years. It is still quiet early to make assumptions, only time will tell. The only interesting encounter this week, although not strictly bird related, occurred during owl banding. On the first net check of the night, the light from the headlamp revealed this mass in the net. The first impression that it was going to busy night because the first owl had just been caught, but the shape did not look right to be an owl. On further inspection, it turned out to be a northern flying squirrel. It also turned out to be a very tangled flying squirrel. Extracting this squirrel was going to take some effort, but first some personal protective equipment was needed (nobody wants to get bitten by a squirrel; you don’t know where they’ve been). Without any leather work gloves available, I had to make do with wool mittens with household rubber gloves underneath. The next challenge was to get the squirrel out without damaging it, the net, or myself. Unfortunately, every time the squirrel was grabbed, it would curl up into a tight ball and begin to gnaw on whatever was close to gnaw on; frequently it was fingers. Soon it became very apparent that this squirrel was not coming out the easy way. The squirrel had already chewed apart the one of the main trammel lines of the nets along with some good sized holes. The other consideration was that the more time spent at the net working on this squirrel, the less chance owls were going to be captured (there were a few distress calls heard already while working on the squirrel). So out came the scissors…which lead to a freed flying squirrel and a flying squirrel shaped hole in the net. The next day there was some sewing to do, and ultimately, flying squirrels dropped a few notches on my list of favorite animals.

2010