Barn Owl Banding is a Hoot!

Fellow birders Don and Lorraine Margeson stopped by the Wekiva Basin Banding Station a little ways back to check out the process of banding and to do a little birding before they visited some friends who live nearby. Those friends, Scott and Carol McCorkle, run The Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka, FL. often referred to as ARC.

While they were visiting us, Lorraine wondered if we might be interested in banding the young Barn Owls that were rehabing after being blown out of their home during Hurricane Wilma in 2005. They have done well and were set for release soon. Master Bander Richard Poole and his wife, Christine, said, "Sure!"

I am currently a volunteer at the Wekiva site and bander-in-training and I definitely didn't want to miss this opportunity to help out.

I arrived just after 1:00 in the afternoon and met up with Scott, Carol, and Therese Dickenson, who also works at ARC. Richard and Christine arrived shortly thereafter with fellow volunteers Ian Simpson and Jack in tow. Once we gathered and figured out the wheres and whens Scott and Teresa headed over to the mews to start rounding up the owls.

They were moving the owls from a larger mew to a slightly smaller one after the banding before releasing them. A mew, by the way, is the name for an enclosure for trained hawks or a place for hiding or retirement. In this use, a place for the owls to hang out. Here is a shot of them. The owls were going from the one on the right to the one on the left.



We were allowed in to get some shots of the birds before they were brought to the banding area. Here is one Barn Owl who can't decide whether to hang tight or fly off.



Here, Scott approaches and positions the net perfectly.



Then Therese gently gets a good grip to bring it out.



Off to the banding area where the owl will be weighed and the existing pink band you can see in the photo will be replaced with a more permanent band.



The new bands look like this:



Here, Richard takes care to get the band on properly without harming the owl. Check out those talons!



For the last owl, Richard turned the pliers towards me and asked, "Wanna try one?". I began the process but the band was being a little tricky as it was my first try at banding a large bird (I just got used to the smallest!) so he took over while I looked on for some learning.



All done! Now the owls will wait in the mew until they can be transported to their original nest location and be released.

The McCorkles asked if we wanted to stick around for some of the raptors to be flown for a work out. Who whouldn't?

However, that will have to wait for the next entry.

The Avian Reconditioning Center has a web site and are open to the public on Saturdays. Check for news and directions there. They also have an Adopt-a-Bird program if anyone is interested in helping with the funding to care for some of these remarkable birds.