We wanted to share some photos of the tagging and release of our first two New York owls, Braddock and Cranberry, over the weekend, courtesy of Aaron Winters.
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- Tom McDonald carefully positions the transmitter on Cranberry, the first of the two owls to be tagged. A small cloth bag works much as does a falconer’s hood, to keep him calm. (© Aaron Winters)
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- The harness complete, the transmitter sits nicely in the middle of the owl’s back (© Aaron Winters)
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- A fresh mouse goes down the hatch before Cranberry goes back to his capture point. (©Aaron Winters)
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- Cranberry peeks out of a holding box…
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- …before taking off across the frozen pond that was his namesake. (©Aaron Winters)
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- Hemostats hold the Teflon ribbon harness in correct position on Braddock’s back while the fit of the transmitter is adjusted, then the ribbon is sewn and the ends Superglued. (©Aaron Winters)
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- Braddock, newly fitted with his transmitter last winter, comes out of the holding box and heads back out onto Braddock Bay. (©Aaron Winters)
3 Comments on “Braddock and Cranberry”
Where is Cranberry? There is no recordings after February 14th.
We’re not sure. There are a couple of birds that haven’t checked in for a long time, and in cases like this we don’t know if it was a mechanical failure in the transmitter, or a mishap that damaged the transmitter (like a vehicle collision), which occurred when the owl was out of cell range, as Cranberry often was out on the ice on Lake Ontario. At first we assumed he was simply staying out on the ice for a prolonged period, as several other owls did, but the ice is melted from all but the extreme eastern end of Lake Ontario, and the continued lack of a transmission makes us (reluctantly) conclude that we’ll probably never know what befell him.
Thank you!