Saw-whet Owl Banding, Nov 4, 2026

Five Augusta Bird Club members and two nephews drove up to Highland Retreat at the very northern corner of Rockingham County to the Saw-whet Owl Banding Station. The station started as a sabbatical project by Dr. Clair Mellinger of Eastern Mennonite University where he started banding in 2001. Today, Ben Spory and Christopher Lehman run the station which bands owls in late October through November. We arrived just after the nets were set on the ridge with a male mating call playing. The evening was unseasonably warm and skywatchers saw Starlink satellites fly over while waiting between net checks. Net check #1 was one male owl, and the banders told us that they get very few male owls. Banders weighed the bird, banded it, measured wing cord length, tail length, then checked the underside of the primaries for porphyrin glow with a black light that allows aging of the bird due to feather molts. The male was a hatch year bird. The other three owls caught during our stay were all non-hatch year females. The banders distinguish male vs female by a combination of weight and wing cord length (females are larger than males). Pictured here is one of the owls before release! What a wonderful project and experience!  – Robyn Puffenbarger