Appreciating Owls close up

By Lori Heggen, California Rice Commission

This is the first in an occasional series of blogs from Lori, who works with California family rice farmers and millers. 


Raptors and especially owls are my daughter’s favorite bird.  Brenna draws them, writes stories and talks about them all the time.   So, when I found out about the Northern Saw-Whet Owl monitoring program, I emailed the founder and Project Director, Dawn Garcia, immediately.  Dawn is so great at sharing her love of birds and readily allowed us to observe banding these adorable owls.

Our night of banding started with setting up nets.  The “bait” was recorded Saw-Whet calls.  After setting up the nets, we retreated to await a capture.  The banding team (Dawn, Julie and Jo) talked to Brenna about owls and kept my usually reserved 12 year-old chatty.  It wasn’t long and we started hearing soft calls of Saw-Whets.  Every half hour we would go and check the nets.  It took three times, but at last there they were - three little winged creatures in the nets.  They were all carefully removed and put into little sacks to await new bands.    Each in turn was carefully measured, weighed, inspected and banded.   I couldn’t believe how well they took to people handling them.  They didn’t wiggle, fight or bite.  They would just look at us with those big round eyes.  I guess, thinking, “please don’t eat me!”  After photos were taken and records were made, they were put back in their sacks to allow their eyes to readjust to the dark.  After a few minutes (and all lights off) they were released back to the air.  It was magical!

I did this for my daughter.  But, I learned so much and fell in love with these little balls of feathers!

The Altacal Audubon Society and CSU Chico Reserves fund the NSWO banding program and all three of the banding team are participating as field trip leaders in different classes for the Snow Goose Festival held later this month.  The Saw-Whet field trip is sold out, but we will be there taking another class on owls!  BirdBling.blogspot.com

There’s more wildlife to see throughout the Sacramento Valley, where you’ll find nearly 230 wildlife species in rice fields and adjacent wetlands.