Winter Woes

Snowy Owls began arriving since my last post, at the start of their arrival I was having difficulties catching them and I'm not sure if it was in part to minimal snow cover. To date I'm at 22 banded and 24 caught. I found two emaciated Snowies that later died. With the amount of snow we have around Peace Region it's no wonder why these owls are starving. I've only caught two older birds and the other 20 have been HY (hatch year) birds.

Regular boreal dwelling owls are scarce this winter, I thought after having such a great winter catching hawk owls last winter that maybe this was the "NORM" in Peace Region, I guessed wrong! I've only caught 3 Hawkowls and a single Great Gray. This is my first Great Gray a month shy of two years since my last.

After a month with my Swedish Goshawk Trap up and running finally the first bird of the season, a SY (second year) male Northern Goshawk.

Recent Birds

Things are picking up around Peace Region. I went out on Friday and came across 2 adult Gyrfalcons. I wasn't able to trap them because they both had full crops but when I went back on Saturday I was setting up for a Snowy Owl and this juvy Gyr came in and I managed to catch it with my bownet.

Snowy Owls have arrived again this year in decent numbers and now they seem to be hungry. I've caught 7 so far and they are all juvy birds. Looks like they had another decent breeding year in the arctic.

Hungry Hawks

Winter arrived 2 weeks early along with Snowy Owls. The first Snowy I found was on Oct.28th and all I can say is that they aren't reacting to my bait like they did last year. I've tried for 12 different Snowies and haven't had any interest.


With the first winter dump of snow a week and a half ago I was very lucky in catching 7 Rough-legged Hawks and 2 Harlan's Hawks. Here are some photos showing the difference in plumage in Roughies. These birds were in terrible shape being very much underweight, I had 3 RLHA's and 1 HRLH on my trap at once. I managed to catch 2 of the 4.

SY Harlan's Hawk



SY Harlan's Hawk



Harlan's Hawk Tail

AHY Male Rough-legged Hawk



SY Rough-legged Hawk







ASY Male Rough-legged Hawk



HY Rough-legged Hawk





Hawk Fight



Roughie Tail





Fall is in the air

A few photos from the weekend, I finally found the ultimate spot for counting and trapping migrating raptors. It is where the Heart River Valley meets the Peace River Valley and on Saturday I counted 74 Raptors heading south.

Here's Peace Region Raptor Stations first Rough-legged Hawk of the fall.

I had an adult Bald Eagle come check out my bait and the best was a juvy Golden Eagle make 2 passes but noticed me and flew away.

This juvy Harrier came in at the same time as another Roughie. I managed to catch the harrier.

Boreal Owls are still coming through so I'm still catching them, saw-whets have almost dried up.

Mike Blom

Boreal Bliss

Monday I got dispatched to a forest fire along the AB/BC border close to Hamburg. This fire was classified as being held at 1000 hectares, it originally started in BC and works its way into Alberta. I spent sometime looking around at the habitat around this fire and it consisted of mostly upland sites with the vast majority of the tree species being mainly Lodgepole Pine and Trembling Aspen. From what I've read and understood Boreal Owls prefer older growth Spruce and Aspen for cover and nest sites.

I setup a net with two of my co-workers and tried calling for Saw-whet Owls for 30 mins. After the first net check and zero owls in the net we switched over to the Boreal call. The next net check yielded 4 Boreal Owls.
After banding the first 4 birds we checked again and low and behold another 2 Boreals were in the net! I caught Boreal Owls before but never in good numbers. The weather began to switch with the winds picking up and rain showers so we closed up for the night.

Late Summer Happenings

It has been a long time since last post so I have a few more pictures to post than normal. I'll start out with the Swainson's Hawk nest. Here are pictures of the 2 young that fledged. A nice healthy male and a fiesty female. This nest I found just outside of Peace River, and what I beleive this nest to be the most northern one in Alberta.

A here is a light adult male Swainson's I caught just outside fo Lloydminster

A couple pictures and a small video my brother-in-law Shayne from ISeeMotion Pictures made for me. This meant alot because this was my 10th and final year of Turkey Vulture tagging in Saskatchewan under Dr C Stuart Houston. This has been an amazing experience and I'm glad that I was able to participate for the full 10 years. My sister and nieces are in this video with me, Thanks Shayne it sure was a fantastic video!!! My last Vulture nest had an adult in the attic and I was able to catch it and tag it! This is a first ever in the 10 years of tagging nestling vultures.

Here is a second rufous morph Red-tailed Hawk I caught a couple of weeks ago.

While up at Haig Lake Fire Base I tried for owls after my day shift. Here is a juvenile Saw-whet Owl just transforming into its adult plumage.

A Boreal Owl caught 3 nights ago at Haig Base.

Saw-whets are ready...

It was beautiful outside this morning so I took advantage and decided to band my nestling Saw-whet Owls from a nest box close to Peace River. Pictures are from the start of egg laying to the finale of banding.

The weigh in which blew my mind! The oldest chick hatched on June.17th is already 104 grms!

Here is the whole batch of six young Saw-whets and 3 which were sitting on a branch.

Summer flying by!!!

Between fire season and time off, the weather hasn't been the best this summer. I had a total of 5 Long-eared Owl nests this spring and after banding the first two nests, I went back to check on the remaining three and they all failed. I honestly don't know what might have caused them to fail but I went back to check on them and the adults were no longer there.I know in previous years back home in Saskatchewan when it is wet like 40+ mms of rain wet the owls don't do so well. Here are a couple shots from the middle of May. Cruising around this part of NW alberta has been a serious past time, I couldn't beleive my eyes when I came across a Swainson's Hawk this far north, the male was a light morph while the female pictured below sitting on the nest was a rufous morph. I'm finding alot of new things up here, i'll have to start to publish some of my findings which include extended the range of SWHA's, Cooper's Hawks and Long-eared Owls in Alberta. Heading west of Peace River I was able to trap this male Rufous Red-tailed Hawk. Their nest was close by so I'm hoping to band their nestlings in a few days. On June.17 visiting one of my Saw-whet Owl nest boxes I was finally able to catch the female sitting on 6 eggs. She had a large brood patch and seemed in fairly plump shape weighing 125 grms. There were also 2 prey items in the nest. One deer mouse and a red backed vole. This was also the day the first of six eggs began to hatch.

Some new spring birds

This spring started off a little slower than I intially expected but I was still able to band a few raptors on their journey north. I was very lucky to catch a couple more Rough-legged Hawks, these are the most stunning Buteos we have in my opinion.

AHY male Rough-legged Hawk

Female second year Rough-legged Hawk Kestrels have been coming through the Peace Region in large numbers and i've been very lucky this spring with just over 30 banded so far. My biggest surprise was trapping 2 Northern Harriers while having Kestrels caught on my traps. Here is a nice Adult Male Harrier.

This year with the help of the local nature society we put together a nest box program for Northern Saw-whet Owls and Boreal Owls. We placed 15 boxes up and I placed another 15 of my own boxes up around Peace Region within the Boreal forest. Here is a shot from one of the boxes.

Saw-whet Owl And finally, it is that time again to bring out the Ravens. I found a whopping 12 nests this spring and it looks like only 2 of the 12 failed this spring, here is a picture from the first batch. These birds were nesting right in town just down the street from my house. I have had my eyes on this nest since the middle of March, 4 young all over 900 grms.