Introducing Lil Montana
Lil Montana. The second Long-eared Owl in our new satellite transmitter study.
We’re excited to introduce the second owl in our new Long-eared Owl research project. Lil Montana is the second long-eared that we have tagged with a satellite transmitter at Whitefish Point this spring. Her transmitter was generously sponsored by the Hells Birders group in memory of their founder, Jamie Platt. A huge thank you to everyone who donated to make this possible, and also to Derek from Kingfisher Recruiting who stepped up for the last $1000 needed. Lil Montana is an adult female that we released at the Point on May 12.
The tracks of Lil Montana (green) and Paradise (orange) as of May 23, 2026.
Like Paradise, the first Long-eared Owl in our study, Lil Montana headed south avoiding crossing Lake Superior after being released at the Point. She then spent the day of May 13 roosting roughly 1 mile west of our local school, which is about 13 miles south of the Point. The following night she headed east, as Paradise had also done. However, while Paradise is still wandering Chippewa County, Lil Montana continued into Canada spending the next day east of Sault Ste Marie, ON. Over the next two nights she flew around 200 miles northeast, ending up southeast of Timmins, Ontario. She then moved northwest until she was a bit north of Timmins and has since spent the last few nights working her way back south.
The recent smaller movements by Paradise and Lil Montana have also been pretty different by comparison. Paradise’s nightly movements have gone in very unpredictable directions, although her roosting locations typically change by about a mile from day to day. Lil Montana’s recent movements have at least appeared to be more purposeful, with her swinging back south covering about five miles a night. It will be interesting to see if Lil Montana moves further north again, or eventually shows evidence of sitting on a nest in the area she seems to be combing during recent nights.
Paradise’s recent movements (orange in left image) & Lil Montana’s recent movements (green in right image).
Meanwhile, back to the nights and owl migration at the Point. While the season is quickly winding down and diversity has dropped, it looks like the late-May spike in saw-whets has begun. On May 20 we hit double digit saw-whets for just the fourth time this season, and for the first time since April 21. We don’t know why we often get a spike of adult saw-whets at this time of year, but we hope it continues through the end of the month. If you’ve visited the owl banding, we have likely tried to give you a quick introduction to how banders age saw-whets. Saw-whets do not replace all their flight feathers every year. The result of this partial replacement of their flight feathers is a mix of old and new feathers on adult birds. The below saw-whet from last night shows this contrast more than most, providing a very nice example of particularly easy to see molt limits. The lighter brown feathers are old feathers, the darker feathers are new.
A Northern Saw-whet Owl showing a mix of old and new feathers.
A rare night with five Whitefish Point owl banders at the banding station.
We also recently had a rare night when five Whitefish Point owl banders were at the station at the same time. We enjoyed having Ryan Steiner and Eliana Fiero-Calderon stay with us this week and we also had an all too quick visit from Cory Gregory. Ryan and I did two summer seasons together, Eliana did a fall season and Cory and I did a summer season together. Ryan and Eliana actually got engaged between net checks during one of Ryan’s summers at the Point. Cory was also previously a Piping Plover monitor and did multiple seasons as the waterbird counter at the Point.
Banding Totals:
Saw-whet: 240 banded & 10 recaptured
Long-eared: 150 banded & 1 recaptured
Barred: 13
Boreal: 4
Total: 407 banded & 11 recaptured