Turkey Vulture Tagging Time!

Aug.4-5th 2011

The time arrived to begin our Vulture tagging season, It comes up quick every year! As soon as I arrived back in Saskatoon I got our gear in order and we set out to tag Vultures in the West and NW part of Saskatchewan. Brent Terry and I travelled to 6 nests around North Battleford and tagged 11 young the first day. Here are pictures from a couple of those nests.

Two young TUVU posing with wings outstretched and sporting new wing tags

One of our stops included this house along a giant slough, new nest site for 2011 season but the house had been used for a few years. Its with help from local landowners that nest sites are found and young Vultures get tagged.

This is our 9th year that Dr.Houston's project has been running. Already with this project we have proven that Turkey Vultures begin breeding at 4 years of age, adult Vultures have helpers that bring food to young and that our Saskatchewan Vultures winter as far as southern Columbia and Venezuela.

TUVU nestling from Glaslyn Barn


So far a total of 144 Turkey Vultures were tagged this August with a handful of nests left to do. This beats last year total and so far has been our best season. Many thanks to everyone involved and especially to farmers who give us access to their land and call in Vulture sightings.

Banding A' Plenty!!!

June.19th 2010

This summer has been a record for Kestrel nests. In 10 of the Kestrel boxes i've checked 8 contained young and 2 contained eggs. I banded a total of 42 Kestrels this past Wednesday. 41 of them were young and a single female sitting on young that had just hatched. I have a few left to check but so far this is by far the best year for Saskatchewan's smallest falcon.

My sister and my neices helping out with Kestrel banding

I received word that there were high numbers of Long-eared owls nesting this year in the Saskatoon area. We went out to a few nests and banded a total of 9 young close to Saskatoon and then on Friday I went out to my study area and found 4 nests and banded 6 more young. There was 3 nests all within the same bluff which is the closest i've ever seen them together.

Young Long-eared Owls

Adult Long-eared Owl


This was a memorable visit to Saskatoon with one of my main focuses on banding Magpies and trying to trap some Swainson's Hawks. There have been a few Black-billed Magpies with young still around so with some help from my sister and neices we caught a few close to Petrofka Bridge.

young Magpie

The coolest retrap so far in the 11 years of banding has been trapping this 11 year old Swainson's Hawk which was originally banded east of Highway 12 and I caught him close to Costco on the outskirts of Saskatoon. This bird has migrated 10 and a half times from Saskatoon to Argentina, now that is some serious mileage!

Common Ravens

May.28th 2011

After a long 18 days fighting fires I was lucky to come back to Saskatoon and do a bit of banding. Michelle and I went back to a Raven nest that was used last year. It had 4 extremely large young ready to fledge so we banded four west of the city.

My friend Brent found another nest for us to band which him and I did today. He climbed to the nest which was around 30ft up and found six young staring back at him. I don't think I've ever heard of a nest of six, an average clutch is four young.

I'm amazed at how big these birds are, they weigh as much as a full grown Red-tailed Hawk and they are roughly 4 weeks old.

A big thanks to Michelle and Brent, without their help none of this project would be possible!

Cold Spring

April.13th 2010

Female Kestrel


I go from banding almost 20 Red-tails and 15 Kestrels last spring to only 1 Redtail and a handful of Kestrels this spring. I'm guessing the mouse and vole population blew up this winter with all the snow cover and left over crops laying in the fields. I've never had Kestrels ignore my bait and I've seen more Kestrels ignore my mice than I have caught birds this year, same goes for hawks. I watched 2 Rough-legged hawks actively hunting by Balckstrap drop down and catch voles like they were given to them on a golden plater. It's more frustrating than anything, especially when the price of gas is 122/ltr.

Male Kestrel



Harriers seem to be plentiful this spring around Saskatoon, I watched as a pair did their mating display along the North Saskatchewan River at my sister's place. There is a pair of kestrels there using one of my boxes and I noticed a pair of Merlins setting up shop in a magpie nest to the west along a shelterbelt. All I need now is Swainson's pair to use the nest they had last year and i should have a productive summer as long as the weather holds.

AHY Red-tailed Hawk

Mike Blom

Slow Start to Spring

March.31 2011

Springtime is one of my favorite seasons but so far this year in Saskatchewan it has been hard for Old Man Winter to leave us and let the warmer temps settle in. I began calling for Saw-whet Owls at the start of March in hopes of figuring out if any of the owls from the fall had stayed close to home for the cold winter months. On March 15th I was not expecting to catch 3 of my owls from the previous fall over the course of a 2 hr evening. Now either these birds stayed close to my banding site or I was just lucky enough to catch 3 previously banded Saw-whets that were coming back through on their way North again, my guess is that they stayed close to here.

Here is one of them


On March 29th I was out again and with temps at +1C and a slight southerly breeze I decided to try my luck. There was still alot of snow cover but I had a nice clear net lane free from snow and deer except for 2 Ruffed Grouse that almost flew into the net! After half and hour the first owl was caught, a nice small SY male caught around 21:40 and after 10 more mins the larger owl in hand on the left was caught. Turned out to be an SY female and both were above average weight.

Yesterday was above freezing and I wanted to see if I could find any Red-tailed Hawks to road trap. I came across 6 RTHA's and a single Rough-legged Hawk and this Gyrfalcon. The interesting thing about this GYRF is that it was a juvenile and it was banded already. Now that I know there was a Juvy GYRF banded southeast of Tessier where I found this bird the chances are pretty good that it is the same bird. So it could be coincidence that this bird is still floating around the countryside but the chances are even better that it is on it's way back north travelling from Outlook Sk so far to Tessier Sk in an NW direction. Its anyones guess but it sure is nice to see that this bird has made it through it's first winter!

Juvy Gyrfalcon

3 Snows and a Prairie

Feb.18th 2011

Over the past couple months Snowy Owls have been extremely hard to find in the Saskatoon area. The last one I've banded was back in December. I decided to head out west and search around for whatever I could find, the weather was ideal with bright sunny skies and a light breeze, the temperature was sitting at -30C.

I found 4 Snowies in total, caught 3 of them and a Prairie Falcon. This is the best luck i've ever had in a single day. I've caught 2 SNOWs in a day a few times but never 3. All owls were adult females. Since joining the SNOWY OWL Working Group my views have changed and data has been brought forward to disprove facts that bilogists once thought were true.

One of these theories was that ornithologists and birders could look at a Snowy Owl and tell what age the bird was. This is not at all true when it comes to dark individuals. We thought that darker birds were indeed young birds from the summer's breeding season. We have proven this to not be true. We have caught birds that were black in color and they have been adult females.The vast majority of Snowy Owls turn lighter in color but they can also turn darker in color both male and female. It is something we keep track of as we band more and more birds, we photograph and record molt patterns to see how much they change throughout their lifetime.

ASY Female SNOW

ASY Female SNOW

ASY Female SNOW

SY PRFA

Mystery Gyrfalcon

Feb.15th 2011

Went out this afternoon after getting a pigeon from my sister's place. Was heading back from Blaine Lake using back roads to Rosthern then to Hague when I came across this Gyr. It took off from a power pole before I could get setup and swooped down and grabbed a small bird. I was guessing maybe a Horned Lark but I didn't get close enough to see what she was eating. She landed on a fencepost and continued eating while I fumbled around trying to get the pigeon into the trap. She took off again as I laid the trap down so I picked it up and cursed in disgust as she flew away.

I decided to head in the direction she was headed and after almost an hour found her again sitting on a dairy farm silo. I jumped out again to drop the trap but she took off east again toward the river. I was extremely dissapointed thinking she had gotten away so I headed for home. I was following a power line towards the river and saw a large bird sitting at the very top of a dead poplar like a Northern Hawk Owl would. On further investigation with my binos it was indeed the Gyr yet again!

I tossed the trap down and within a few seconds she came in hard and low. Nailed the trap and landed beside it. Walked up and was caught by 6 nooses. The best part of this capture isn't that its the 3rd Gyrfalcon I've caught this year, it's the fact she was wearing a band. I sent in the information to the banding office and wait to hear where she was originally banded.