Weekend in the Boreal

Sat Dec.19th 2009

After the bad cold snap of -40 c for the past week, we decided to take a trip north into the Boreal Forest to look for some owls. We arrived just as the sun came up and found out first hawk owl around 10am. It was off in the distance but eventually came closer to the road and perched on a power line. Within seconds it was caught, banded and measurements were taken. It was a young bird fom this summer.

We continued driving west and managed to see 9 more hawk owls and 4 Great Grays. We ended our trip banding 8 hawk owls and 2 Great Grays. It was an excellent day and seeing that many owls is always a nice surprise. I know alot of people down south who would love to see the northern owl species, especially in numbers that high.

Newly banded Great Gray Owl

American Dipper in Saskatoon

After hearing about the American Dipper by the weir in Saskatoon from Guy Wapple I wanted to check it out for myself. I hadn't seen one since 2001 while birding in Squamish BC for the eagle festival. We found a few of them fishing for salmon eggs as they were being laid. This little guy was fishing along the South Saskatchewan River eating minnows. I wonder where it is now, its -40 C tonight and I wonder if it is still along the river dodging ice flows.

Rough-legged Hawk & Northern Goshawk

Rough-legged Hawk

Went up north this past weekend to look for owls to band. We did see a Northern Hawk owl which quickly flew away and a gray phase Gyrfalcon who was eating lunch so we couldn't get setup for it. It carried whatever it was eating off to a fence post.
We did however come across 4 Rough-legged hawks though and the first one we saw, we caught right away. Was a beautiful day but not much for owls and so we decided to head home early.

I received a call from Shayne that there was another hawk bouncing around in the Goshawk trap so I headed out and there was this nice massive female Northern Goshawk in the trap. She wasn't happy to have me pin her down and tied up her feet.
I was happy that I was able to get her legs before she could grab me. Biggest Goshawk I've ever caught, this is 4 Northern Goshawks in 2 years. Hope it keeps up and it would be nice to catch an adult which look a lot different then these juveniles.

Northern Goshawk