Banding Northern Saw-Whet Owls

Theo with a Saw-whet Owl. All photos by Karen Madsen

Guest Blog by Theo Kolkman, 11

Size compared to ball point pen.

Jared put the band on the owl's leg with special pliers.

Peeking out end of cardboard weighing tube.

We arrived at Jared’s (farm near Edenwold, SK) in the afternoon, and set up the nets for the owls at 6:30. The nets were all wrapped up thick, connected to the poles, and Jared spread them out to make them invisible and ready to catch owls. We then setup the “game caller” (a speaker that looks like a flashlight, and plays bird calls downloaded onto it) and put the Saw-whet call on. Their call sounds like a high-pitched, repeated whistling call, and they are called Saw-whet because their call sounds like the teeth on a saw being sharpened on a whetstone.

We went inside to wait for the birds, and about every hour we went outside to check the nets if there was any owls caught in it. The first time we went out, a Ruffed Grouse got caught in it, but was able to get out because it was too big. Jared found one of its feathers, and gave it to me when we got inside. It was small and curled, and had another smaller soft feather under it.

We continued to go out about every hour, and had no luck until 11:00. When we went out that time, we found one little Saw-whet Owl, tangled up in the net! Jared untangled the owl, and put it in a little bag made for holding that size of owls. I carried the bag back to his house, and we set the bag on his table for banding owls.

He got his chart ready, and all of his other instruments, and wrote all of the information he had about the owl before he opened the bag, like what net it was caught in, and at what time. When he finished that all, he took out the owl. It was very small, and he held it by holding its two legs. The Saw-whet was very quiet, and calm. First he checked to see if it had a band already, and it didn’t. Then he got it a band and put it on pliers that you squeeze and the band goes on the owl’s leg. He twisted the band so it stayed on, and wouldn’t fall off. Every band number is unique, and there isn’t another band in North America that has that number.

Then he measured its wing, its tail feathers, and its beak. Then he showed us that the Saw-whet feathers aren’t all over the body, only in rows. He blew where there isn’t feathers, and we could see its skin, and Jared showed us its fat it stores so it can fly and migrate long distances. He showed us how they tell how old the owls are, by the colors of the feathers, and they know that they get new feathers every year, but don’t molt every feather, so they know how old they were by the feather generations.

He told us that the facial disk helps the owl hear better, like a person cupping their ears. He also showed us its ear, and we could see the back of its eyeball! Then to weigh it, he put it in a little cardboard tube head first on a scale. It looked really cool when he showed us its head through the other end. Did you know that an owl’s head always faces the same direction, for when it’s hunting? He moved its body all over the place, and its head stayed facing the same direction.

After he wrote all of his information down, he let me hold the owl. It felt cool holding it, and I held its wing out. After we put it back in the bag, we couldn’t take any photos, because we’d blind the owl. We waited until we had to check the nets again, and let the owl out. We had to turn our lights off, and then Jared opened up the bag and the owl flew out. When we were going to check the nets again, Jared saw a weasel in the bush, and I saw its eyes reflecting my light. When we checked the nets, there were no owls, so Jared wrapped them up thick, like a rope so the birds could see it, and no birds would run into it.

Jared at net. Note hole made by large bird.