Late Winter Owls

It has been relatively quiet around Peace country the last little while. I haven't been out looking for Snowy Owls for almost 2 weeks, last time I was out I found 2 new owls in areas I haven't searched before and I was lucky to find these two young males. The first male was light, 1310 grms

where the second male was in great shape at 1700 grms.

Most of all the hawkowls have moved on, I still have 2 hawkowls that are sitting exactly where i caught them around christmas time but I found 2 new ones, the first one pictured here came in without even using a live mouse, I had a frozen vole in my car and as soon as it hit the ground this bird came in right away, the other hawkowl I caught that day was far out in a field hunting, so I played the call and it came in with a flock of redpolls in pursuit, as i held the hawkowl the redpolls would flutter beside my hand, i've never witnessed that before!

Last night I was thinking why not try for Boreal Owls just to see if anything was floating around, the night was perfect at -10 C and no wind with clear skies. I setup one mist net under a stand of White Spruce trees that were 60+ feet tall to block out the moonlight right beside Leddy Lake which is 15 mins north of Peace River. First net check produced this SY BOOW.

I left the BOOW call on for another hour with no more birds caught so I decided to switch the call to Saw-whets and the next net check produced 2 Saw-whets, both SY birds which I thought was very strange. Either these birds have stayed up here all winter or else they are coming through now which to me would seem early. The molt of all three of these birds were even right across the wing so i'm thinking young from last summer.