California Spotted Owl Field Job
This job was part of a study to determine if the California Spotted Owl was endangered like the other two sub species of Spotted Owls.
The main part of my job was to go out and find the owls, tract them to their nest if they’re nesting, catch and band any birds that didn’t already have leg bands including the juveniles. We did this by first going out at sunset to an area that had had a pair or a single bird last year. Here we would call the owls by making their call; you don’t have to be real good at it, just getting the cadence down will bring a bird it from some distance during nesting season. They need to check out who is in their territory. When a bird comes in to check us out, we check to see if it has leg bands on and if so try to identify it (more on this later). We then toss out a live lab mouse; usually the bird will come down and grab the mouse and fly away, when this happens we run after it until we have both loss site of it. This is not easy, remember it is either dark or getting dark, in the woods and usually going up or down the side of a mountain (on more than one occasion one of us would trip). When we have lost sight of it we wait and hope it returns in a little while. If it does this usually means that there is a nest, early in the season he is taking food to his mate as she sits on the eggs, later it can be either bird catching food for the young. If the bird doesn’t return we mark the map and our GPS (GPS aren’t always right when you’re in a thick forest), we will return on another night and start at this spot. If it does return we go thru the process again until it doesn’t return or we have found the nest. We then will record that nest location so we can come back when the juveniles have gotten out of the nest so that we can catch and band them.
Many of you are probably aware of the basic concept of bird banding, but here is a little more about it. Each band has a number on it which is similar to our social security number, it is unique to that bird so when that bird is caught later or the info is reported from a dead bird, It is known exactly which individual bird it is and that it has traveled from one spotted to the other. Through the years this has given us information about migration, longevity of the bird’s life and a lot of other info. If you find a dead bird with a band record the number, location, date and call it in, it helps.
Now you might be thinking that there is no way we can read the number on a live bird in a tree and know which owl it is. You’re right. So we have another way to determine that. In a given research area we have a color band system. No two males or females (yes to the trained eye we can tell them apart) have the same coloring of bands on a given leg. For example only one male in our large area of study would have on its right leg a solid red band and a green and black band. When we see that combination we can identify which bird it is. Even though an owl is a fairly large bird the bands are still not that big and so when you are trying to identify the colors at night it can be a challenge. Binoculars and headlamps help but there is still the chance of error. We reduce that by having two of us and we don’t say what we think we are seeing until both of us have determined what it is. Then we say what combo we saw, if we both didn’t independently come up with the same combo then we both look again. Usually both came up with the same colors on the first try but not always.
Another problem would be running out of color combinations. To prevent this we deal with the juveniles in a different way, because so many of them will either leave the area completely or die in the first year. So we pick one kind of band that all juveniles of that year will get (black and yellow band that year). When we saw a bird with a single black and white band we knew it was one of last year’s juveniles and we would recapture it and change its band to a unique color combo. Although this means some birds have to be recaptured and banded again it prevents us from using up all the color combinations on birds that will not be seen in this area again. Once a young bird stakes out its own territory it will usually stay there.
The way we would actually catch an owl was draw them in close with a mouse but keep it close to us so that the bird was leery of coming in to catch it. This way the bird would come to a low branch and look at the mouse and us. Now one of us would keep the birds attention by making a noise or movement whenever it tried to see what the other person was doing. This would allow the other person to move behind the bird, they then would raise a pole with a noose on the end of it (the noose was set so it would only get snug but not actually choke the bird) up and lower it over the birds head. Now the bird is yanked out of the tree, at this point the birds safety is number one. The person who was doing the distracting now rushes over and first gathers the wings which are now flapping and folds them gently back into the birds side. Now while you hold the bird from the back with its wings neatly folded in (Your thumbs on its back and your fingers holding the wings in) you now release your little finger and try to grab the legs and pull them in. I said try for a reason, frequently the bird digs their sharp talons into your finger. Remember I said the bird’s safety is first, this means you put aside the fact that it really hurts and you grab on to the leg that is dug into your finger and hold on. Now your partner removes the noose and puts on the leg bands first and then takes a few measurements and records the data while you and the bird continue to cling to each other. When your partner is done they step back and you release the bird by just giving a gentle toss up and let go; it will gladly let go of your finger and fly away.
Being able to get so close to wildlife like this and literally having a hands on experience is absolutely thrilling. I’m always grateful for having these unique experiences.