We are excited to be part of a research project that is putting nanotags on Northern Saw-whet Owls and tracking their activity via Motus towers. This project is headed by Project Owlnet & Aaron Coolman, a master's student at University of Delaware, and aims to look at migratory connectivity for this species. As part of this project, we tagged 12 adults and 10 juveniles in summer 2024, and 10 adults and 5 juveniles in summer 2025.

It’s hard to believe that it has been 20 years since Nova and I discovered and started the summer owl banding back 2006. I’ve donated a lot of blood to the mosquitoes working in the woods here at night over the last two decades, but it has been worth it. This season Holly Erickson and I banded 206 Northern Saw-whet Owls (NSWO) and five Long-eared Owls (LEOW). Of the saw-whets banded this season, 60 were adults and 146 were juveniles.

The summer owl banding season is just about over, and we are amazed and grateful to all of you that it was able to occur! Here is a blog post from our assistant owl bander about her time here. Next week we will do a full summary of the season.

On August 15, Michael Kielb and I led our first Moth Night in Paradise, sponsored by the Friends of Whitefish Point. People gathered just before dark at Sawmill Creek Park on the north side of town where four light stations were set up to attract moths and other insects.

We have some exciting and unique events planned for this fall, if you will be up in the Paradise area, you should consider joining us!

The past week was the warmest and wettest of the season, including some torrential rain storms. One storm dumped almost 5 inches on Whitefish Point. Unsurprisingly, it was slow for owls, but the juvenile saw-whets continued at a steady trickle. Also, we have 2 upcoming programs this weekend for Blueberry Festival!

We’ve been able to band 35 out of the 36 nights this season, and have banded 186 owls and recaptured four previously banded owls. A highlight this week was the recapture of a Barred Owl that we originally banded this spring. This is just the fourth Barred Owl to be captured in the summer at Whitefish Point, and the first one that was a recapture.

Given that we have yet to have a single night’s banding total hit double-digits, the nights have remained surprisingly steady. Over the past week we banded 38 Northern Saw-whet Owls (NSWO) and three Long-eared Owls (LEOW). Of the 38 NSWO, 34 were juveniles and four were adults.