Post by Gord on Dec 4, 2006 19:30:11 GMT -8
From Bird Studies Canada. A similar story to the pine sisken that was banded out East and found on the West Coast.
Well-Traveled Northern Saw-whet Owl
1 December 2006
Northern Saw-whet Owls are commonly banded in eastern and central Canada where several of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network stations have long-term owl monitoring projects. The species’ movement in that part of the country is becoming well documented. In the west, however, this is not the case. It is only in the last few years that banders have begun targeting Northern Saw-whet Owls. In 2002, Vancouver Island’s Rocky Point Bird Observatory initiated a fall owl monitoring project that now bands 200 to 400 Northern Saw-whet Owls annually. The Rocky Point Project has had a handful of recoveries in Washington State, all of which were within 150 kilometers of the banding site.
Elsewhere, Dan Zazelenchuk has been banding Northern Saw-whet Owls on his farm near Kyle, Saskatchewan since 2003, and he has worked as a volunteer on Last Mountain Bird Observatory’s Saw-whet Owl Monitoring Project. On October 23, Dan made an interesting discovery in his owl nets – a Northern Saw-whet Owl that had been banded September 27, 2003 at Rocky Point Bird Observatory, over 1150 kilometers to the west of his current location. Rocky Point Bird Observatory’s Paul Levesque could not believe it. "This is an amazing recovery. In the past three years this owl flew over open ocean to leave Vancouver Island, crossed the Rockies, and was crossing the Great Plains when Dan recaptured it. Band recoveries like this show how little we know about the movement patterns of owls."
Well-Traveled Northern Saw-whet Owl
1 December 2006
Northern Saw-whet Owls are commonly banded in eastern and central Canada where several of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network stations have long-term owl monitoring projects. The species’ movement in that part of the country is becoming well documented. In the west, however, this is not the case. It is only in the last few years that banders have begun targeting Northern Saw-whet Owls. In 2002, Vancouver Island’s Rocky Point Bird Observatory initiated a fall owl monitoring project that now bands 200 to 400 Northern Saw-whet Owls annually. The Rocky Point Project has had a handful of recoveries in Washington State, all of which were within 150 kilometers of the banding site.
Elsewhere, Dan Zazelenchuk has been banding Northern Saw-whet Owls on his farm near Kyle, Saskatchewan since 2003, and he has worked as a volunteer on Last Mountain Bird Observatory’s Saw-whet Owl Monitoring Project. On October 23, Dan made an interesting discovery in his owl nets – a Northern Saw-whet Owl that had been banded September 27, 2003 at Rocky Point Bird Observatory, over 1150 kilometers to the west of his current location. Rocky Point Bird Observatory’s Paul Levesque could not believe it. "This is an amazing recovery. In the past three years this owl flew over open ocean to leave Vancouver Island, crossed the Rockies, and was crossing the Great Plains when Dan recaptured it. Band recoveries like this show how little we know about the movement patterns of owls."