The End is Near
As the end of the field season quickly approaches, we wanted to give a quick update. The last five nights have been fairly productive, with 72 saw-whets and eight long-eareds banded. The late-May push of saw-whets is still a mystery to us. If these bird are from our region, they should be breeding right now. We can only speculate that they may be unpaired birds, or failed nesters, but we just don’t know. Regardless, the recent push has put us over 800 owls banded this spring. Seven of the eight long-eared were banded in the last two nights, which is actually pretty unusual for this late in the season. We also recaptured three saw-whets and a long-eared that we banded here in previous years. One of the saw-whets was from last spring and two were from spring 2023. Interestingly, one was banded on the same date in 2023, the other was banded on my birthday in 2023, which is in mid-April. The long-eared was originally banded as an adult in spring 2021, making it at least seven years old! We’re going to enjoy the last few nights of the field season before we have to do all the data entry and report writing and provide a final blog update on the season’s results.
The 800th owl banding this season, a Northern Saw-whet Owl.
The Long-eared Owl recapture from spring 2021.
Nature Notes:
This Black Bear, one of last year’s cubs, was an unscheduled visitor to the banding station.
It seems like it is a good year for snowshoe hares.
The cold night time temperatures have kept moth activity low, but we’ve had a bit of activity. It’s only about 1/2 inch long, but this beautiful Rhyacionia sonia may represent a first state record for Michigan.
Possibly Michigan’s first Rhyacionia sonia.
There’s been at least 21 species of sphinx moths documented at the Point, and this apple sphinx from last night was the first we’ve had this spring. It’s not as beautiful as some of the others, but it’s always exciting when we see our first sphinx species of the year.
Our first sphinx moth of 2025.
Spring Banding Totals:
Northern Saw-whet Owl: 548
Boreal Owl: 9
Long-eared Owl: 237
Barred Owl: 7
Great Horned Owl: 1
One of our other projects is our Eastern UP network of small owl nest boxes. These are spread out over Chippewa & Luce Counties, and each spring we have wonderful volunteers who take a pole camera out and check for breeding owls. If this is something you would be interested in taking part in, please contact us at fowpofficeATgmailDOTcom. We can always use more volunteers to check in spring and help clean out boxes in the fall.
Steve Davis using a pole camera to check a nest box south of Paradise.