Banding project aids study of saw-whet owl

Normally I would not be willing to make a round trip journey to southern Maine on a Friday night after work, but this trip was special. Hopefully, we would get up close and personal with saw-whet owls.

A small group of us from the Bangor area met trip leader Judy Markowsky to carpool to our destination: a small banding station run by Judy and Steve Walker in Freeport. Walker is staff naturalist and manager of Maine Audubon’s Gilsland Farm Environmental Center in Falmouth. Every fall from October through November, she and her husband are deeply immersed in the Saw-whet Owl Banding Project.

The project, now in its eighth year of operation, is an intensive effort to discern this owl’s migration patterns, habitat preferences and needs, and population statistics. Although the Walkers’ station is one of 18 located throughout the East Coast and Great Lakes states, it is only one of two full-time banding operations in Maine. Sometimes, this can lead to some very busy evenings.

Every night after dark for two months – barring inclement weather – Judy and Steve set up mist nets on their 12-acre property. They then begin playing tape recordings of saw-whet owl vocalizations, retire to the house, dim the lights, and wait. On special evenings, they invite members of the public to view the owls and the banding process up close.

Of course, the owls need to “cooperate.” There is no guarantee they will oblige us by flying into the nets to be caught; it was for this reason that we waited with cautious anticipation, once we arrived in Freeport, for Walker to arrive and lead us to the banding station.

Two more participants joined us while we waited. Linda and Henry Bohm of Ellsworth had a “personal” interest in the evening’s outcome: Henry explained he had “adopted” a saw-whet owl for his wife as a Christmas gift. He was referring to Maine Audubon’s “Adopt a saw-whet” program, which, for a fee of $25 (which helps support the research), earns the adopter a certificate containing detailed information on a banded bird, a photograph, natural history information, and each season’s project results.

“Maybe ‘our’ owl will show up again to autograph our photo,” Henry joked.

As it turned out, we needn’t have worried about the birds not coming in. The first trip out to check the nets yielded one owl; the second, five, plus one little sprite who sat in a tree, watching the goings-on quizzically.

I had seen numerous saw-whet owls in captivity and one in the wild, but was still surprised at their size when I viewed them up close while they were weighed, measured, and banded. They weigh about as much as a robin does; in length the robin is actually the larger of the two.

The equanimity displayed by the little owls was amazing, although the process was in no way hurtful – just undignified. Getting them out of the nets – the strands of which were almost as fine as human hair – took the longest. Once they were brought inside, it took Judy and Steve less than 10 minutes to weigh them; attach seemingly weightless aluminum alloy bands to their legs; measure their wing, tail, and bill length; and determine their sex, body condition, and age. They were then immediately released, which was a special event in itself.

We all trooped out to the porch behind Judy, outside and inside lights were extinguished, then Judy opened her hand. We could see the owl as the faintest silhouette, just sitting there in her open palm, getting its bearings. At once the owl took off, and Judy quickly shone her flashlight so we could see the owl as it flew up into a tree. Not a whisper of sound did it make – we might as well have been trying to hear the movement of a moth’s wings.

This silent flight is made possible by minute modifications along the owl’s flight feathers – an adaptation vital to a bird that hunts by sound, seeking prey that also has highly acute powers of hearing.

If you’d like to learn more about these owls, or attend a banding session – there is one more on the night of Oct. 28 – call Gilsland Farm at 781-2330, ext. 215, for more details and to make a reservation.

Chris Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com