Now that we have finished the spring banding season, we would like to simply thank you all so much for being part of this new organization. The genesis of the Friends of Whitefish Point and the transfer of the owl banding only occurred last November, and everything that we have accomplished in these last several months has been such a collective effort.

Despite having written dozens of owl banding summaries in the past, I have been failing miserably at writing this one. It’s not summarizing the banding season that is defeating me, it is finding the proper words to express our immense gratitude for the support that you have all provided us with.

As the end of the field season quickly approaches, we wanted to give a quick update and some new nature notes for you. It has been an interesting last week.

Well, folks, gratitude is the best way to start anything, but if there are words that adequately express the gratitude I’ve been feeling since Birdathon, I haven’t found them yet. Thank you. This past weekend, 14 teams from all over Michigan came up to Chippewa County to spent 24 hours looking and listening for as many bird species as they could find while raising money for the owl research conducted by Friends of Whitefish Point.

Although it has recently been relatively slow for owls, they have picked up a bit again and it has been a busy time for us since our last update. We held our first Friends of Whitefish Point event and hosted a tour led by a former crew mate from our time at WPBO. The owls cooperated enough for the 30+ visitors we had at the owl banding over the last few days to have a great experience.

This past week started off with a night of just two owls, then a night of three. We were ready for the owls to really go into the lull we experience at this time of the season, but they actually picked up a little bit again in recent nights.

Although the owls have slowed down a bit, it was still a productive week. We had a decent number of owls come through, including a few exciting birds that were already banded.

The owl banding this past week proved to be very productive. Over the last six nights, we banded 227 owls and recaptured eight more that were previously banded.