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.

The excitement we have continued to feel this past week is honestly hard to put into words. We’re still falling more and more in love with the new owl banding station as we continue to customize it to be more functional. We’ve also been able to start making changes in the new banding area to improve our captures as we become more familiar with it and as the snow levels recede.

We have two events this spring, for those of you who are interested in visiting the area and learning more about birds and migration! You can come to our Birdathon in mid-may and/or register to visit the owl banding station anytime between now and the last weekend in May.

The trailer for our new banding station has arrived and is in place! The migration has been a bit slow, but we have added two more species for the season. The weather has been difficult, but we are feeling hopeful that spring is just around the corner.

As March comes to a close, it comes as no surprise that early spring along Lake Superior can best be described as winter. Recent nights have included a mix of high winds, sleet, snow and freezing temperatures. However, saw-whet owls are still starting to move north.

So far this spring we have banded 53 Northern-Saw-whet Owls (NSWO) and recaptured four more that were previously banded. Two of the recaptured owls were originally banded at the Point, one last year in May and the other in April 2022 (pictured below).  The other two recaptures were both banded in the fall of 2022, one was banded at the Mackinaw Straits and the other at Hawk Ridge in Duluth, MN.

We’re thrilled to say that the spring owl banding got off to a great start last night. Click on the post for a full overview, and news about the matching campaign that just started!

First Snowy Owl of the winter. Yesterday we went out looking for Snowy Owls for our work with Project SNOWstorm. We were hoping to capture one that we could put a transmitter on, to better assess their wintering habits and habitats.