Very few Yard birds, wildlife rides are not turning up much either. Trail Cam has Redtails and Crows on a road kill, no coyote yet!

Everyone keep warm just 4 more weeks to go and the warmer days of March will be here and so will returning birds…..

paul

I was very spoiled last Jan ‘09 with 100’s of Pine Siskins feeding in my yard daily. I netted and banded over 450 of these great little birds from the far north. I still have faith that I’ll see some this winter season.

One of the Pine Siskins banded in my yard was found 1962 miles in Alberta, Canada!

Well 2010 is here and a whole new year of enjoying Birds and wildlife ahead!

This year Marlene and I will be married 25 years and we planned two trips to mark this important year in our lives. We’ll be going to Florida for 10 days to enjoy the West coast and visited with a great friend. We’ll travel along the coast to see some neat areas I have never been before. It’ll be enjoyable for Marlene and I as we started our lives together with a trip to Florida a long time ago.

Our second trip will take us to the south west. More on this trip later.

Back to present time, The single song sparrow I banded in Feb. ‘09 has returned to my back yard feeders. I have not set any nets yet as I await more feeding birds other than english sparrows.

Hope everyone the Best of the new year…

Paul

Besides working all kinds of hours, I also did hunt the 1st day of Deer. Missed a beauty at 9:50. No excuse just missed this guy clean. Only deer I saw. Not much out that day, even the birds were hiding from the cold rain.

More to come soon….

Paul

Before Beth released this owl, it was banded with one of my bands. It will be interesting to see if any of our Owl banding stations nets this bird in the future.

I am up to 28 Saw-whets netted and banded now. I should see more owls now with the weather turning colder.

Beth with Saw-whet before she released it.

Beth Stern releasing the owl

This is the Saw Whet Owl that Beth found walking down a Manhattan street the other day. Originally we thought it was a baby owl, but based on the info here, it seems that Saw Whet Owls are this size when they are fully grown.

This is from Howard Stern.

On his show he talked all about this Saw-whet and how beautiful it is. The Owl is with a rehab person in NY. I do hope it will be able to go back to the wild and Howard and Beth can be part of this birds release

     Picture from Howard Stern.

I netted 11 Saw-whets and one Screech owl Sunday night. On Monday I netted another 5 Saw-whets

on Monday. I’ll be setting the nets after this next front passes us this weekend.

Birds are on the move. my yard birds are coming into feed. No hummers seen in a week. One banded Titmouse feeding. I’ll set my yard nets soon. Saw-whet banding this weekend if weather is good.

one of over 75 so far...

I had 5 different hummers feeding in the yard this past month. I enjoyed taking hundreds of photo’s and comparing each bird to record how many I had. I am down to two right now. I had only one adult Ruby visit two weeks ago on a Sunday morning. Two minutes feeding and he was gone. I missed him as my camera was not set up ( bummer ).

Still here feeding

Sorry but it has been some “summer” and now we are into early fall. After banding hundreds of Kestrels, Blue birds, tree swallows and now tagging raised Monarchs, you would think I was ready for a down time. no way! I’ll be banding some migrating hawks and then into Saw-whet owls that will be coming south from the far north.

One of my highlights of banding all the Pine Siskins the early part of 2009 was that one was found 1,961 miles from my yard in Alberta, Canada. I was really excited to hear about this recovery.

I’m still doing my data entries of the summer banding season. Soon i’ll have a full report to all that follow my banding studies.

More to come…

Paul