By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

LIBERTY, Ind. — They’re no bigger than a hand, and secretive and nocturnal. Most people have never seen one. It’s no wonder Northern Saw-whet owls were considered uncommon in the Midwest.
But Tim Tolford and other bird-banders are surprising birding experts by proving that is not the case.

Tolford lives on Hubble Farm in Liberty, Ind.. He enjoys birding and has been a licensed bird-bander since 1993. Yet, he had never seen a Saw-whet owl on his land until he began banding them in 2008. He captured 53 that winter.

“Before we banded, there would be maybe one record a year of a Saw-whet owl here,” Tolford said. “It was usually at the Christmas bird count.”

At eight inches, these critters are the smallest owls in the eastern part of the country. They are warm-brown overall with reddish streaks on a white breast. Their eyes are yellow. If you happen upon one on its daytime roost, it may act remarkably tame.
Unlike most owls, Saw-whets migrate. They travel south from their breeding area in southern Canada and the northern United States. Just how many there are, how far they go and when are questions Tolford and other banders hope to answer.

“Two years ago a friend of mine who lives in Alabama put some nets out,” Tolford said. “It was an irruption year, which means there were a larger number of them coming through and he banded 80. It was the first record for the entire state of Alabama. Until then we didn’t know they went south of Tennessee.”

Tolford is a stay-at-home dad. That limits his opportunities to visit bird banding sites, so he sticks with banding projects he can do at home – he’s been banding hummingbirds since 2007. With “co-conspirator” retired biologist Sam Fitton, he began banding Saw-whets last winter.

So at twilight, Oct. 10 through Dec. 15, Wednesday through Sunday, the duo set up nine mist nets; mist nets are somewhat like badminton nets with pockets.

They turn on a recording, which continually blares out a Saw-whet call (one of the bird’s calls sounds like a saw being sharpened on a whetstone – hence the name). If Saw-whets are in the area, they will be drawn to the area and, it is hoped, fly into the mist net and fall into a pocket.

Tolford would like to set-up 10 nets, but he doesn’t have enough protected space. The safety of the birds comes first with banders. The nets must be under cover to protect the Saw-whets from predators – even screech owls, only a tad bigger than a saw-whet, will prey on the mini-owls.

After setting up the nets, Tolford and Fitton wait in a room in Tolford’s barn that has been remodeled to serve as the banding station’s headquarters. Every hour until about midnight they check the nets. If a Saw-whet has been captured they carefully retrieve it and take it inside for processing.

First, the bird is banded with a band from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Then they take measurements, determine the bird’s age, sex and fitness level, weigh it and release it. One Saw-whet they released perched on Fitton’s head and stayed there for about 10 minutes before flying into the darkness.

The information collected is sent to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, a repository for all bird banding information, and to Project Owlnet.