Northern Saw-whet Owl project. Contact Kilgore at jkilgoreoutdoors@yahoo.com .

Northeastern State University biologists are in the woods and on the job. A group of researchers is working on a project. I love the moniker used by this group of researchers working on the Oklahoma Northern Saw-whet Owl Project—the “Owl Gals”.

This effort was inspired by a similar program in Arkansas. Dr. Kim Smith and Mitchell Pruitt set up a northern saw-whet owl banding station at the Ozark Natural Science Center several years ago. After Dr. Mia Revels, a professor of biology at NSU, and Laura Hulbert, an undergraduate student at NSU, visited the Arkansas Northern Saw-whet Project, they decided to set up banding stations locally.

The Owl Gals partnered with the Nature Conservancy to establish Oklahoma’s first northern saw-whet owl banding station to see if the miniature birds were as rare in Oklahoma as some people believed. Dr. Revels and Hulbert, along with NSU graduate student Abbey Ramirez, began their project in 2016 in Cherokee County.

“The purpose of this project is to help fill in the knowledge gap of northern saw-whet owl migratory movements in the south central United States,” said Ramirez. “The northern saw-whet owl is a very quiet and secretive species, especially during fall migration. They are difficult to document with normal surveying techniques as they stay hidden and are not vocal. This has led to people believing that they are a rare visitor in Oklahoma.”

Its name comes from the sound made when alarmed. The sound resembles the sound of the ‘whetting” or sharpening of a saw on a whetting stone. Thus, the name “saw-whet” owl. The small owls are known by their primary “advertising” sound of a series of too-too-too toots which can sound like a large truck backing up. They can keep up that sound for up to an hour and the call is loud and travels far.

The owl is small and weighs only about three ounces. It stands about 5-6 inches in height, has a head that is large and it has no ear tufts. A unique Y-shaped white marking appears between its eyes and the owl also has a brown and white striped belly. It’s nocturnal and feeds primarily on deer mice, other small rodents, birds, bats and insects. Although it’s a bird of prey itself, the northern saw-whet owl is targeted by bigger birds such as great horned owls. The average lifespan in the wild is about seven years while the oldest saw-whet known was over nine years old. While small, the saw-whet owl is considered very feisty for its size.

Its normal range is the northern United States and Canada. Previously, only 14 saw-whet owls have been recorded in Oklahoma. The NSU researchers used four 12-meter mist nets set up in a line, overlapping slightly. Next, they used an audio lure that plays the northern sawwhet owl call on a loop to draw them in. When the owls would swoop down to check out the noise, they were caught in the nets.

The Owl Gals started the audio caller thirty minutes after sunset and checked the nets every hour until at least midnight. Once an owl is caught, the Owl Gals carefully remove the owl, place it in a cloth bag to transport it back to the banding station where it is processed (banded, weighed, age and sex recorded and its condition checked). The bands are marked with a unique number so individual owls can be tracked.

“Our banding station yielded 18 sawwhets from October-November,” said Ramirez in 2017. “Historically, they were thought to be a rare visitor during fall migration in Oklahoma. Our project shows they are more common than thought. During last season, we had a lot of issues with wind and lunar illumination that may have negatively impacted our results.”

“The wind causes the mist nets, used to capture the owls, to blow and could cause the owls to see and avoid the nets. High lunar illumination can make the nets more visible to the owls and possibly cause them to avoid the nets. The plan is to set up two net lanes, one in the same location and the other in a more closed and protected area, protected from wind and lunar illumination, to see what impacts wind and lunar illumination has on northern saw-whet owl captures,” said Ramirez.

In 2020 and 2021, Laura Hulbert continued the project at two different sites. As of this moment, the Owl Gals have banded a total of 64 northern sawwhet owls in northeastern Oklahoma. Last year, they had their very first owl recaptured by another individual. An owl, they banded on November 18, 2021 was caught just north of Dallas on November 29th. This helps give the Owl Gals an idea on where these owls are migrating. This season, they are in the process of setting up a Motus Wildlife Tracking station, and attaching small radio transmitters on the captured owls to get a better idea of where they are going. This gives a more detailed idea of the individual bird’s migration route, rather than relying on another station to recapture one of their banded birds.

Hulbert said, “The newest Owl Gal, Jackie Cosmai, is a graduate student who is just beginning her research on these small owls. This year, we have captured three saw-whets, but have run into the same trouble we have had in the past: warm evening temperatures, strong winds, and low cloud cover on nights with high lunar illumination. The next week and a half is peak migration, so there is plenty of time left in this season to catch more.”

“Our process with the nets, audio lure, and hourly checks remains the same. We also continue to record the bird’s weight, age, sex and health condition. Our procedure is quite standardized and we try to remain consistent. The only part of this process that has changed in 2022 is adding the small transmitters before releasing the owls,” stated Hulbert.

Laura Hulbert will be giving a lecture in the spring to the OKC Audubon Society at the Will Rogers Garden Center on Monday March 20th at 7 p.m. for those who are interested in learning more. For further information about this project, you may check out their Facebook page, Oklahoma