Hello all, On Sunday, January 9, 2005 a group of birders from Peterborough Co. (and elsewhere) participated in a Great Gray Owl survey in order to try and get some idea of the number of individual owls present in the southern portion of Peterborough Co. (south of the Precambrian Shield). A significant portion of the area was covered with volunteers driving the road networks and recording the location and time of any owls seen. Many participants recorded the locations with the aid of handheld GPS units. I estimate that approximately 75-80% of the roads were driven. A small portion of the area was covered on Saturday, Jan. 8th due to the unavailability of the participant on Sunday. The weather conditions were excellent for surveying GGOW's as it was overcast all day, resulting in the owls actively foraging all day long. Had it been a sunny day, I don't expect our totals would have been as high. 22 participants were involved in the "formal" aspect of the survey. These 22 participants covered 1505 km and totalled 23 1/3 party-hours. An additional 11+ individuals (including the Ontario Field Ornithologists trip, thus the "+") were not involved in the formal survey but were birding in the area and participated by submitting their GGOW records. We received casual records from both Sat and Sun (with one record from Mon of an owl nowhere near any of the other reports). In total, 83 individual Great Gray Owls were reported! There are obviously more owls around that this as a percentage of the roads were not covered, and many owls would not have been visible from the road network that was covered. In addition, on 3 separate occasions, while driving a road I had already covered, I found an owl I had missed. On all three occasions, I had turned around and covered the same road in the opposite direction. The new owl was spotted because I was viewing from a different angle. Had I done this for all roads, I'm sure I would have found more owls. These records have been mapped (thanks to Simon Dodsworth for creating the map!) and the map is available (in both jpg and pdf formats) on the NHIC website http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nhic/great_gray_owl/ggow.cfm <http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nhic/great_gray_owl/ggow.cfm> I would like to thank all of the participants who spent a portion of their day investing in this worthwhile survey. I'd also like to that all of those people who heard about our survey in one way or another and also submitted their records - these greatly enhanced our coverage. We have talked about the possibility of redoing this survey again in two or three weeks time, perhaps with more participants and even better coverage. Formal Participants: Holly Bickerton Graeme Browning Lisa Browning Mark Browning Louis Chora Bill Crins Cathy Darevic Mirielle Delisle-Oldham Simon Dodsworth Terry Dodsworth Dave Hambly Sherry Hambly Andrew Jobes Colin Jones Anna Lawson Mike McMurtry Marty Obbard Neil Obbard Mike Oldham Robi Oldham Bob Prentice Chris Risley Don Sutherland Casual Observers: Tony Bigg Gerry Bird Jim Boothby Ed Czerwinski Rob Falconer Dave Milsom - OFO Tour Rod Nailer Ken Rumble Rick Stankiewicz Shawn Thompson Gavin Trevelyan Colin Jones Natural Heritage Project Zoologist Ontario Natural Heritage Information Centre Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources 300 Water St., 2nd Floor N., P.O. Box 7000 Peterborough, Ontario K9J 8M5 Tel: 705-755-2166 Fax: 705-755-2168 <mailto:colin.jones@mnr.gov.on.ca> colin.jones@mnr.gov.on.ca <http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nhic/nhic.cfm> http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nhic/nhic.cfm ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. ----- End forwarded message ----- ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.