Subject: [Tweeters] Banded Burrowing Owl origin
Date: Dec 12 07:40:40 2012
From: Bob and Barb Boekelheide - bboek at olympus.net


Hello, Tweeters,

It looks like we've found the origin of the banded Burrowing Owl hanging out near Sequim from Dec 4-9. It was apparently banded in south-central British Columbia as part of their restoration project. It turns out the green band on its right leg was really green over black, which barely showed in my photo. Since we couldn't read the whole number, we don't know exactly when or where it was banded, but it seems likely one of theirs. Unfortunately the bird hasn't been seen the last couple days. Here's the message from Myke Chutter, provincial bird specialist in BC:

Hi Bob ? we use green over black auxiliary coded bands in addition to USFWS aluminum bands, so I?m pretty sure that the bird you saw would be one of ours. We?ve had a few of our birds turn up in winter in WA, so this would fit the pattern (some went as far south as CA but all seem to be coastal). Burrowing Owls are an endangered species in Canada and were once considered extirpated from BC. We have a captive-breeding release program where we breed birds in captivity, keep them overwinter, and band and release them to sites in the wild in the spring (75-100 birds). Many of the pairs we release stay and breed, and we then band the young (150-200 birds). Our release sites are comprised of artificial burrows with artificial nest chambers which we can easily access to band any young produced. So the bird you saw could be captive-bred or one of the wild born birds. The release sites are in the southern interior of BC ? most around the Merritt to Kamloops are, but some further south close to the US border near Osoyoos too. If you go to the BC Species Explorer website at http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ and enter Burrowing Owl in the species name box, and then open the Reports folders (top far right), you?ll find a host of information sources relating the our program.

Many thanks to all the Tweeters folks and owl researchers who replied to my original message.

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim
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