04-14-14 Owl Field Note

04-14-14 Owl Field Note

April 14, 2014

Kate Stone and William Blake recount their recent searches for, and capture of, Northern Pygmy-owls.

Kate Stone William Blake Owl Field Note 4/11/14

Our owl projects are in full swing with the peak of the owl breeding season. In the past two weeks, we spent most of our time searching for and attempting to capture Northern Pygmy-owls.

We went to great lengths to search for pygmy-owls, including forging through knee-high snow on South Baldy Ridge.

William found one territorial owl on the slopes of West Baldy Ridge. On the day he detected it, it captured and ate a vole right in front of him.

We used a combination of methods in our attempts to capture the owls. Here William sets up a mist net with a pygmy-owl decoy and an audio lure in hopes of making the target owl territorially aggressive. Though annoyed, the pygmy-owl did not approach the decoy close enough for capture.

This particular owl on the slopes of West Baldy Ridge has proved both entertaining and frustrating. We attempted its capture three times without success. In this instance, we saw it regurgitate a pellet right in front of us. We retrieved the pellet afterwards.

The pygmy-owl went for our mice lures but ended up bouncing off of the trap and under the mist nets placed nearby. Then it sat in this tree, staring at us and intermittently hooting for more than an hour.

We had better luck capturing this pygmy-owl in Upper Woodchuck. It went both for our mouse bait and the decoy owl. We eventually captured it in a mist net.

William wore this shirt to intimidate the small owl.

We had a good view of the false eyes on the back of the pygmy-owl’s head.

We attached a tiny radio transmitter to the owl’s back, using a backpack harness.

The pygmy-owl gave us the stink eye after we released it.

One day later, William found the pygmy-owl using this mistletoe-rich forest in the Woodchuck subdivision.

The forest used by this pygmy-owl contains dense clumps of mistletoe. The tree William spotted it in contained mistletoe, though the owl perched on a lower branch (inset).