Fall Birds

Nov.22 2010

Since finishing up the fall owl banding season at Owl Acres totals for saw-whet owls was 197 with 3 foreign retraps. Two of the saw-whets were from Prince Albert Saskatchewan. One was from Portage La Prairie Manitoba banded in 2009.I was able to retrap one of my own saw-whets from the previous year and it arrived 3 weeks earlier this year. A total of 17 Long-eared owls caught which is the highest year ever for me.


Rough-legged Hawk


I have been out road trapping Rough-legged hawks and they seem to be a couple weeks late this year along with Snowy owls compared to last year. I found my first Snowy owl last year on the 4th of November and banded my first on the 11th of Nov.



This year I banded my first SNOW yesterday morning a nice Hatch Year male.





This Great Horned Owl was sitting in my goshawk trap early this morning

Fall Owl Banding

Oct.14th 2010





So far this has been the best fall since learning how to catch and band owls during fall migration. The weather is absolutely perfect and has been for almost this whole month around Saskatoon. Average nights are 10+ saw-whet owls and the occasional long-eared. I'm very pleased with the amount of birds coming through my banding station this fall. It's only the middle of Oct and i've banded 165 saw-whet owls and after tonight 17 long-eared owls.






I'm thinking of taking next week off because of the full moon. Catch rates drop dramatically when there is too much moonlight. I'm also wishing I had ordered 300 bands for saw-whets instead of the normal 200. I've caught 4 banded birds, one from Manitoba banded last fall, one from this site from last fall which is a first for me, and the other two owls were banded NE of Prince Albert a few weeks ago by Harold Fisher. I hope this weather continues and that the owls keep pushing through.






Mike Blom

Saskatoon, Sk

Back In SaskY

Sept.15th 2010



After a long absence from Saskatchewan I'm finally back to my good old routine of catching raptors. I have been busy sitting out at the raptor migration station and have only caught a couple of birds so far. An ASY male Cooper's Hawk and a HY Red-tailed hawk which is the one i'm holding with my niece Magdalena.







Last night was good, I was able to call in 3 long-eared owls, catch one of them and a saw-whet owl.













It looks as though next week will be a bad week because of the full moon, in the 7 years of trapping saw-whet owls I've never had any luck catching them when there is a full moon so the first week of October should be dynamite unless it decides to rain, fingers crossed and lack of sleep for the whole month of October.

Kestrel Klean-Up

June.25th 2010




After 3 long years of being away in Ontario I finally got to band young Kestrels again. I placed 30 Kestrel boxes up in my study site just west of Saskatoon and they have been used off and on every year. This year I would have guessed them to be empty with all of the rain. Most were full but were a couple weeks behind schedule, with adults still incubating eggs.









Michelle and I banded 2 adults and 18 young this first round. Next round there should be another 20-25 young to band if the weather coperates and there is enough food for the young. It was a half decent weekend being back in Saskatchewan. We ended up banding a few Kestrels, Merlins and a Crow. Swainson Hawks on the other don't seem to be doing that good, I was unable to locate any new nests and the 2 that I did find were both abandoned.



Merlin Nest

Common Raven Nest

May.15th 2010

This was the earliest I could post this Raven nest Michelle and I banded a week ago because I've been working back in Northern Alberta. We found this nest by chance as we were driving to get a coffee in Saskatoon. I saw a Raven fly over my car with a stick in it's bill. It landed on a billboard and hopped in between both signs so we turned around to investigate. This was the 3rd Raven nest I found within the town of Saskatoon this spring. It was an interesting climb but I was able to grab all four chicks and haul them down to get them banded. These are the first colour banded Ravens in Saskatchewan and hopefully if all goes as planned there will be plenty more in future years. Big thanks to my right hand help Michelle!




Billboard with Raven nest











Banded Nestlings

Pair O' Swainson

April.21st 2010



ASY Female Swainson's Hawk




ASY Male Swainson's Hawk


Had a couple of buddies from Ontario visit me for two days and we went out to my study area by Asquith Sask. We caught and banded this pair of Swainson Hawks. The female was caught first, she was a little on the light side for weight, but her mate the male as in great condition, he was really fat actually. I hadn't caught a SWHA since 2007 because of moving to Ontario for my Forestry course. It has been a fantastic spring with alot of raptors banded. I had an amazing spring for Long-eared Owl banding with a total of 10 banded in 2 nights, best ever for me.



Long-eared Owls




Mike Blom
Saskatoon, SK, Canada

Cooper's Hawks

April.17th 2010



ASY Male Cooper's Hawk

For the last 2 weeks I have been counting migrating raptors at my banding station. It has been slow on the banding front but there have been alot of Red-Tailed hawks. Today brought the first Swaison and Broadwings of the spring. I did see a Coops doing its mating display earlier this morning. I caught and banded 2 Cooper's hawks, A nice ASY(After Second Year) Male and a fiesty SY female.




SY Female Cooper's Hawk