Linwood Springs Research Station

12/10/2022

We finished the 2022 owl banding season with 362 Saw-whets and one Long-eared Owl. The saw-whets got off to a slow start but we did manage to have two good nights of 30 and 51 on 25 and 26 of October respectively.

Overall, it was about 100 owls below our average.

- Gene

12/01/2021

We finished the owl banding season with a record breaking year banding 735 Saw-whet (see graph), 20 Long-eared and four Barred Owls. I want to thank Naomi Burns (intern) for her dedication to the project as well as UWSP Wildlife Society volunteers for their long hours banding owls.

11/24/2020

I have an update on #003. This adult female Red-shouldered Hawk was tagged with a solar powered transmitter at her nest site in Stevens Point, WI in June 2020. She began her migration south on October 18 and arrived at her winter grounds on November 11, 35 miles NE of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She traveled approximately 1000 miles (see the map). Gene-

10/28/2020

Two of our Red-shouldered Hawks are on the move, currently in northwestern Illinois.

10/27/2020

Despite our reduced trapping hours each night, we are doing fairly well with number of Saw-whets banded this year! So far we are up to 401 Saw-whet owls and only 1 Long-eared owl. With only a couple more weeks left of banding we are hoping to reach 500 Saw-whets, but we will see. Definitely not a good year for Long-eared owls for us here however.

Here is a photo I took tonight of a Saw-whet that I originally banded here at the station last year on October 29th! Was nice to see this now second-year female stop back this year for a visit!

-Brad

10/02/2020

Owl banding season has begun for us here at Linwood Springs Research Station, but of course due to Covid-19 we've had to adjust how we operate a bit this year. We have a small group of permitted banders taking turns each night to band for only half a night to help ensure everyone stays healthy this season. We will also unfortunately not be holding any public programs this year. We will hope to see you next year!

We are hoping for a good owl season, however! Saw-whet owls have already started showing up for us and our best night so far was on Sept. 28th with 12 new Saw-whets banded! Last night we had a surprise in one of our Saw-whet nets with this lovely male Barred Owl!

-Brad

09/06/2020

08/19/2020

I encourage everyone to view the red-shouldered hawk telemetry study (2020 summer update) by visiting the link below. https://www.facebook.com/pg/PhantomsofTheForest/posts/

-Gene

This study will track Red-shouldered hawks using solar power GPS transmitters. We will determine, ne

03/14/2020

With the amount of daylight increasing so much recently, the Snowy Owls are getting restless and have started to move northward. Check out our two radio tagged owls ("Columbia" and "Fond du Lac") on the Project SNOWstorm website: https://www.projectsnowstorm.org/snowstorm-owls-winter-2017-18/ After you get to the website select "Owls" along the top, then go to "New Owls" and then select Columbia or Fond du Lac.

11/09/2019

With the Artic blast arriving here soon, we have closed up our nets a few days early for the season. This season was better than last season, but certainly wasn't the best season in our history. We ended with 406 Northern Saw-whet owls, 23 Long-eared owls and 1 Barred owl. A great season overall!
Thank you to our volunteers and UWSP student volunteers for all your hard work this season and to those who came out to one of our public owl programs! We greatly appreciate your support!

-Brad Zinda
2019 banding intern

10/17/2019

No rain, no wind and cloudy skies makes for a great night of owl banding! So far tonight we have banded 28 Saw-whet owls and got our first Long-eared owl of the season!

Pictured is Brilyn, UWSP Wildlife Society student volunteer, with the Long-eared owl.

-Brad

10/10/2019

This week our workshop students have been busy banding hawks at our hawk banding station during the day and saw-whet owls at night. Here is a photo from today with 2 male hatch year Red-tailed hawks just before release. We banded 3 Red-tails and 1 Sharp-shinned hawk this afternoon.

-Brad