Small Start To Fall

A couple quick months have passed by and lucky surprises have kept us entertained, a first for Peace Raptor Study. A big thanks to Syl Bourdages for some Peregrine sightings and the study's first bird!

              Syl with his Peregrine just north of Grande Prairie, Alberta      

Warm weather brings an end to the summer and the beginning of hawk migration. A nice surprise on Aug.29/13 when an adult Cooper's Hawk showed up in the yard. Content of having pigeon for breakfast she was an easy catch in the goshawk trap.

     AHY Cooper's Hawk

The first cold front brought a nice push of Sharp-shinned Hawks and Kestrels.

      Juvy SSHA

    Juvy Kestrels

After last years luck with Boreal Owls at the end of August I gave it a try for a couple nights and caught 6. All of them but one were young from this year.

     Boreal Owls

September marks the start of Northern Saw-whet Owl migration, so far there has only been a single owl being caught each night but by mid Sept and early October birds should be on the move.

    Northern Saw-whet Owl

Summer Spoils

Well summer hasn't been all I hoped it would be, beginning with my first ever Boreal Owl nest failing in part from a Pine Marten, then checking my Saw-whet Owl nest only to find it had also failed. This has been a summer to remember with record amounts of rain and a few disappointments.

I'll begin with some amazing data since I started studying Snowy Owls back in 2003, the first Owl I trapped this winter we named "Mike" has made it to Victoria Island Nunavut. The second adult male Snowy I caught by Whitelaw, AB  named "Whitelaw"

also made it to Victoria Island. Both of these owls are into their 4th  year of life and are not breeding this summer, rather are wandering around.

It will be interesting to see how many young Snowies arrive back in NW Alberta if any do at all. I banded my 100th Snowy Owl since getting my masters permit in 3 years.

I was hoping to get some eagle nest photos but 2 of my Bald Eagle nests have blown down in the crazy wind storm we had last month. All I've really banded in the last month has been this Long-eared Owl nest which had 3 young and the odd magpie and raven nest.

        Close up of Victoria Island Nunavat

      American Kestrel in heavy molt

       Check out the variation in tails of these hawks, very cool to witness!        Red-tailed Hawk

                                                     Light Morph Harlan's Hawk

                                                    Western Red-tailed Hawk

                                          Red-tailed Hawk mixed with Harlan's Hawk
                                       
                                            

                                             Long-eared Owl Nest

Snowy Spring

After 7 months of winter spring looks like it might be here to stay. It's been a very long time since I've updated on here but I really haven't had much luck trapping much the last month or so. Kestrels just aren't around in any great numbers this spring but I have managed to catch 3 so far. Here is a male I caught back at the beginning of April.

Red-tailed Hawks and Harlan's Hawks have also been coming through in decent numbers, here is two different color variations of Harlan's Hawks, a light one looking at its back and a dark one from the front.

Tonight I went out to try and find a Peregrine Falcon I came across hunting ducks south of my place. I was in luck finding the Peregrine again but my pigeon froze as the falcon made passes out in the field at ducks so I wasn't able to catch it. I did manage to have my best luck road trapping Rough-legged Hawks though with 5 caught. Here is a look at the difference between each bird.

And finally after almost 2 months of waiting 'Whitelaw' our Snowy Owl is on the move heading NW and has made a pit stop in the Keg River area. There are open farm fields which Snowy Owls prefer for hunting. Stay tuned to see where he ends up.

Last night I caught my 100th Snowy Owl since receiving my masters permit. This nice three year old male decided he wanted pigeon instead of a field full of ducks.

Idle March

Things have slowed to a crawl to explain my bird banding as of late. March started off good with 5 Boreal Owls banded in 2 nights.

Adult Boreal Owl



March also brought my 3rd Gyrfalcon of the winter, a very plump adult female Gyr. My first ever adult captured.

There seems to be the odd Great Gray Owl and Northern Hawkowl still floating around, here is a Hawkowl I banded by Manning.

We finally deployed our last satellite transmitter a couple of weeks ago on a 4 year old Snowy Owl I caught by Whitelaw hence he is named Whitelaw. He sat on a large transmission line for about a week then decided to move SE across both the Peace River and Smokey River to an area that I've banded lots of Snowies in the past, I'm still very much amazed how these birds head to areas where I've been before.

Here he is with Raptor biologist Mike Russell without transmitter.

Satellite transmitter attached

Map showing current location.

Today I went south by Girouxville to try for some Snowies, I only came across an adult female Snowy I banded back in Feb, but as I continued South I watched this Northern Goshawk at the grain terminal sitting waiting for pigeons to arrive. I'm glad I found him before any pigeons arrived.

Tracking Snowy Owls in Northern Alberta

Transmitters arrived and last weekend I was able to trap a suitable Snowy Owl to meet up with raptor biologist Mike Russell and our friend Syl to put the transmitter on that was shipped from Norway to Saskatchewan then to Peace River. I caught this adult male south of Fairview and we met each other to place the satellite transmitter.

It didn't take very long to put the transmitter on, Mike Russell has been placing transmitters on Barred Owls, Great Gray Owls and now Snowy Owls, after about half an hour it was secured to our Snowy which we named "Mike" after ourselves.

Syl Bourdages was very helpful in the process so I would really like to thank him for taking photos and lending a hand when needed!

Releasing Snowy "Mike"

Here is "Mike" as I found him 2 days before the first transmission from his receiver. Notice the antenna sticking out from his back.

And here is his first week of movements, he moved around a bit.

Thanks Dan for the maps and sending the transmitters.
Stay tuned for more updates as he tracks north back to the arctic this spring.

New Year and New Birds

It has been quite sometime since my last post,

First new bird of 2013 was this beautiful Great Gray Owl, it has been a long time since i've banded one.

I'm looking for a site to start baiting Snow Buntings and I got lucky when I my neighbor told me about a grain pile across the field. There were close to 500-600 snow buntings feeding there so I setup my bownet and caught some.

                                          Adult male Snow Bunting

There seems to be no Northern Hawkowls around this winter, I have only seen 2 on my travels and caught both in the new year.

Adult Snowy Owls have finally arrived, they are hungry this year so far and very easy to catch. I took a drive south to Falher where I caught most of my Snowy Owls last season, there was an owl perched on a transformer pole just at dusk so I setup for it and caught it. This is my first ever retrap of a Snowy Owl banded in a previous year. Here is how much she changed color.

                                               Female Snowy 2012 molt

Retrapped Snowy Owl 2013

Went out this past weekend and caught a couple more Snowy Owls and this juvenile male Gyrfalcon, this has been a remarkable winter, I've never seen so many Gyrfalcons.

Gyrfalcon

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