June 23, 2008 Picnic Program
Snowy Owls to Saw-whet Owls by Dr. Norman Smith
report by Barbara Butler

Dr. Norman Smith

Thunderstorms were knocking around the county, but a good number came to Stony Kill for our picnic and program.  We enjoyed the wonderful new building there for our "picnic" and the program. 

Norman Smith discussed his raptor banding projects, but the focus of the evening was owls -- Snowy and Saw-whet.  For decades, he has studied the many Snowy Owls that winter at Boston's Logan Airport.  His banding data along with more recent satellite tracking results disprove the notion that Snowies come south in the winter starving due to a lemming population crash.  He finds the birds well-fed.  A summer population boom in lemmings results in the fledging of many young Snowy Owls, followed by a winter of many Snowy Owl visitors for us.

In need of a high school science project, Smith's daughter discovered that a few banders had been successful in trapping Saw-whet Owls in surprising numbers and places.  Using her experience as her father's assistant since the age of two, she set up a banding site at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary in Marshfield during migration.  She used a  tape recording of her imitation of the saw-whet calls.  She caught saw-whets, the first record of the owl at the sanctuary.  She tried other locations, including the family's suburban backyard, and caught saw-whets and other owls even there.  Her results have been confirmed by other banders, including Glenn Proudfoot, who bands the diminutive owls at Vassar Farm and Mohonk during migration.  Turns out these little guys slip through our area as well as the Boston area undetected, except by nocturnal banders.

Northern Saw-whet Owl
Northern Dutchess, February 2004
photo by Gary Zylkuski

Smith stressed the importance of inspiring young people with the excitement of the natural world so they will care about and protect it into the future.  He is well-placed to carry out his mission as director of the Massachusetts Audubon's Blue Hills Reservation Trailside Museum.  But  we all have a role to play from active involvement to financial support.  The satellite tracking transmitters go for $3000 each, with a like amount required to operate them (for satellite time, etc.)  Yet a small number of them provide more information than thousands of banded birds.  With the tracking information, Smith could tell that the Boston-wintering owls return to the breeding grounds and the females remain at one location for about 30 days, indicating incubation.

See the Massachusetts Audubon website for information about the Logan Airport Snowy Owl project.

About Our Speaker:
Norman Smith has studied birds of prey (raptors) for over 30 years, including rehabilitating the injured and successfully fostering over 600 orphaned hawk and owl chicks of various species into adoptive nests. He has held a bird-banding permit for raptor research for over 20 years. His ongoing long-term projects include trapping and banding migrating hawks and owls in the Blue Hills Reservation, banding nestling hawks and owls, and monitoring (and banding) snowy owls and other raptors wintering at Boston's Logan International Airport. He has also traveled to Alaska to study snowy owls in their native tundra habitat, and assisted Nature Science Network with two video tapes produced for the National Audubon Society, Hawks Up Close and Owls Up Close. His research work has been published in the following magazines and journals:  National Geographic, National Wildlife, Ranger Rick, Yankee, Massachusetts Wildlife, Bird Observer, Birding, Sanctuary, Geo, Nature, Grolier Encyclopedia, Owls of the Northern Hemisphere and Owls of the World.