Canadian Birder Receives Recognition for Decades of Banding Owls

The recipient of the 2008 Champion of Owls award has spent more than six decades banding a plethora of owls and other birds in Canada.

Dr. C. Stuart Houston received the award – being one of several nominees – from the Center for Biological Diversity in late February at the annual awards event, held at the International Festival of Owls in Houston, Minnesota.

Stuart Houston holding a Great Horned Owl. Photo courtesy of Dr. Houston.

Houston banded his first birds in 1943, working for Ducks Unlimited Canada. As a youth, "Ducks Unlimited (permit no. 00077) paid me 10 cents, then 20 cents per duck banded,” he said.

Through the end of 2007, 136,479 bands had been placed on 209 species in Saskatchewan, with authorization by permit 00460, the second lowest number active for the banding program managed by the Canadian Wildlife Service in Ottawa.

The year 2008 will be his 66th year of banding birds near his home in Saskatoon, and Mary Houston, his wife’s 57th year.

Houston mentioned several values to banding efforts:

1) Most important is the publicity that helped people realize that owls have a niche in nature. Owls were being shot, but 25 years later Saskatchewan farmers realized the value of owls in the natural scheme.

2) Mentoring and educating youth about the natural world; several helpers have become professors of zoology or ornithology, one became the Saskatchewan Minister of the Environment, and one became Canada's Minister of State for Science and Technology in Ottawa. Others have played prominent roles in conservation.

3) Returns from banded birds provides details needed to determine how long owls may live. Early on one owl lived a record 13 years, then another lived for 20 years, and one old owl was around for 26 years.

4) The large number of recoveries and encounters provided data showing that owls will live longer if born in a year with larger prey populations that allow the fledged young to remain in the area where born. Otherwise, many go elsewhere, moving up to 1000 km southeast into the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.

Houston’s wife of more than 56 years has been essential help in the banding effort, Houston said. She also helped with extensive banding of colonial waterbirds as well as banding thousands of tree swallows and bluebirds, and more than 5000 Bohemian Waxwings. About half of the Bohemian Waxwing band recoveries for North America resulted from rings she placed on the waxwings, Houston said with pride in his voice.

Several subpermittees have also provided essential assistance during the years, with a number eventually achieving the skills and knowledge to receive their own banding permit.

The cooperation of local farmers has been essential in banding the local owls, Houston said. Landowners would locate nests, get permission from their neighbor the land owner and then tell us about them so we visit them to band the young.

In the 1940s, Bill Horseman was instrumental in getting Houston started in owl banding. Horseman was a high school student earning cash by trapping weasels, muskrats and beavers. Bill noted Great Horned Owl nests in trees along his trapline, and asked Houston if he would be interested in banding the owlets. That first season, 22 young in ten nests got aluminum rings on their legs. This effort received recognition in the continent summary in Audubon Field Notes. Fifty young were banded the following year and 150 the year after that. From this experience, Houston realized the value of organizing farmers to find nests.

"It has required a lot of driving and hours to band the birds," Houston said. "This could not have been done without the help of farmers and a good team that spelled me off by climbing the most difficult trees."

Mary and Stuart Houston. Photo by Dan Varland, as published in Wingspan, the newsletter of the Raptor Research Foundation.

Each May weekend, the banding team would start at 5 a.m. Saturday and go to midnight Sunday. Days were long at that latitude, Houston explained. Additional banding was done in early mornings and late evenings. "We worked from south to north and rarely had to change our itinerary to avoid rain."

"We covered a lot of country and met many nice people," he said. "Some farmers would provide a meal that would be a welcome change from our packed sandwiches. We stayed in small town hotels overnight. Our major cost was the gasoline for our 4-wheel-drive vehicle.

Dr. Houston started his medical career in family practice in 1951, but after nine years spent four years of study to become a radiologist. "It helps to have discretionary income, since banding birds has become an extremely expensive hobby, with no financial recompense."

During the many years of banding owls, there were no serious mishaps or accidents, Houston said. "We would do dangerous things very carefully and safely."

The most dangerous time for Houston was the cold day when a fledgling owl flew into the middle of the South Saskatchewan River. "I had to retrieve the bird before it floated too far down river," he said, "so I removed everything but my under-shorts and swam to get the owl. I was blue and hypothermic by the time I got back to the shore. That episode could have been fatal to both of us." And the owl was put back safely into its nest.

Houston has found that six out of 100 adult female owls will strike the climber. One Great Horned Owl pair nested for years in the cupola of an old barn. To protect its young in a light drizzle, the adult remained in place, covering her young to keep them dry. The climber seized the rare opportunity. He threw Houston's jacket onto the far side of the adult owl, to prevent her from flying out the open window. The owl was diverted back into the barn and fluttered down to the floor of the loft, heading straight for the farmer, Bill Cochrane. Bill enveloped the owl and the falling-off jacket in his arms as he went down onto his knees. A shout of triumph was followed by cries of pain, as the owl sank all eight claws into Cochrane's belly, Houston said. Although thick winter clothing prevented the claws from penetrating into his peritoneum, he was taken to the hospital for a tetanus shot.

Other highlights of Houston’s career include:

• Recognition as an Officer of the Order of Canada for his outstanding national service to Canada
• Writing 51 papers on owls
• Writing reviews of six books on owls
• Publication of 11 books, included Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay in 2003
• Recipient of awards from the American Ornithologists’ Union and Raptor Research Foundation

Dr. Houston is currently working on a two-volume work on the birds of Saskatchewan, and continues to have a great interest in bird history of the north lands of America.

This coming season he will continue the sixth season of his latest project, wing-tagging of nestling Turkey Vultures, with a team of helpful and enthusiastic people. Please watch every Turkey Vulture you see. If it has a wing-tag, read or photograph the number and report it to the banding office. Information is irretrievably lost unless every bird band or marker is reported promptly. Phone without charge to 1-800-327-2263, giving details of when, how, and exactly where it was found.

Banding Records

Of the 209 species, bands have been found for 82, including several thousand for some of the species:

Total Number Banded (1943-2007) - Species With Band Recoveries - Total to end of 2007 - Percent of All-time Recoveries in North America

5512 - American White Pelican - 263 - 4.8%

4674 - Double-crested Cormorant - 267 - 5.7%

84 - Great Blue Heron - 3 - 3.6%

247 - Black-crowned Night Heron - 5 - 2.0%

26 - Snow Goose - 5 - 19.2%

53 - Canada Goose - 9 - 17.0%

5 - Tundra Swan - 1 - 20.0%

17 - Gadwall - 2 - 11.8%

85 - American Wigeon - 14 - 16.5%

2 - American Black Duck - 2 - 100.0%

2022 - Mallard - 419 - 20.7%

1501 - Blue-winged Teal - 72 - 4.8%

77 - Northern Shoveler - 7 - 9.1%

642 - Northern Pintail - 93 - 14.5%

82 - Green-winged Teal - 4 - 4.9%

94 - Canvasback - 27 - 28.7%

378 - Redhead - 80 - 21.2%

5 - Ring-necked Duck - 1 - 20.0%

17 - Lesser Scaup - 1 - 5.9%

113 - White-winged Scoter - 7 - 6.2%

11 - Bufflehead - 3 - 27.3%

148 - Common Goldeneye - 9 - 6.1%

5 - Common Merganser - 1 - 20.0%

5 - Western Grebe - 1 - 20.0%

265 - Turkey Vulture - 32 - 12.1%

609 - Osprey - 28 - 4.6%

78 - Bald Eagle - 4 - 5.1%

453 - Northern Harrier - 5 - 1.1%

250 - Cooper's Hawk - 4 - 1.6%

34 - Northern Goshawk - 1 - 2.9%

4805 - Swainson's Hawk - 184 - 3.8%

1004 - Red-tailed Hawk - 47 - 4.7%

4143 - Ferruginous Hawk - 69 - 1.7%

330 - Golden Eagle - 34 - 10.3%

1050 - Am Kestrel - 14 - 1.3%

1011 - Merlin - 14 - 1.4%

804 - Prairie Falcon - 9 - 1.1%

745 - American Coot - 28 - 3.8%

110 - Least Sandpiper - 1 - 0.9%

19 - Pectoral Sandpiper - 1 - 5.3%

1330 - Franklin's Gull - 4 - 0.3%

20448 - Ring-billed Gull - 432 - 2.1%

9855 - California Gull - 206 - 2.1%

395 - Caspian Tern - 7 - 1.8%

3107 - Common Tern - 25 - 0.8%

46 - Mourning Dove - 1 - 2.2%

7638 - Great Horned Owl - 580 - 7.6%

102 - Snowy Owl - 6 - 5.9%

160 - Northern Hawk Owl - 1 - 0.6%

14 - Burrowing Owl - 1 - 7.1%

19 - Barred Owl - 1 - 5.3%

177 - Great Gray Owl - 7 - 4.0%

710 - Long-eared Owl - 9 - 1.3%

30 - Boreal Owl - 3 - 10.0%

909 - Northern Saw-whet Owl - 9 - 1.0%

21 - Hairy Woodpecker - 1 - 4.8%

109 - Northern (Yellow-shafted) Flicker - 2 - 1.8%

40 - Eastern Kingbird - 1 - 2.5%

407 - Loggerhead Shrike - 2 - 0.5%

201 - Blue Jay - 16 - 8.0%

1285 - Black-billed Magpie - 45 - 3.5%

590 - American Crow - 12 - 2.0%

97 - Common Raven - 3 - 3.1%

1133 - Purple Martin - 8 - 0.7%

19986 - Tree Swallow - 36 - 0.2%

628 - Barn Swallow - 1 - 0.2%

1114 - Black-capped Chickadee - 8 - 0.7%

7959 - Mountain Bluebird - 21 - 0.3%

425 - American Robin - 8 - 1.9%

5179 - Bohemian Waxwing - 44 - 0.8%

218 - Chipping Sparrow - 1 - 0.5%

2574 - White-throated Sparrow - 2 - 0.1%

318 - Harris' Sparrow - 2 - 0.6%

502 - Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow - 2 - 0.4%

4905 - Slate-colored Junco - 4 - 0.1%

1229 - Common Grackle - 66 - 5.4%

396 - Purple Finch - 5 - 1.3%

314 - House Finch - 1 - 0.3%

3203 - Common Redpoll - 5 - 0.2%

38 - Hoary Redpoll - 1 - 2.6%

998 - Pine Siskin - 2 - 0.2%

943 - Evening Grosbeak - 3 - 0.3%

131,267 - Total recoveries from 82 species through the end of 2007 - 3365 - 2.6%

There are several highlights from this banding effort. The longest living owl banded was a Great Horned Owl which died when it was 20 years and 8 months of age.

Distant recoveries include:

• a Common Tern from Aitutaki, Cook Islands (9435 kilometers (km) southwest of the place where banded)
• a Pectoral Sandpiper, shot on its breeding grounds along the Jana River deep in Siberia, 5700 km WNW;
• a Franklin's Gull at Puerto Caldera, Chile, 9475 km south; Ospreys in Colombia and Ecuador;
• Swainson's Hawks in El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay and 18 from Argentina

Dr. Houston has noted than there have been no returns for 127 of the species banded. "Surprisingly, I have not had a recovery from the 276 Short-eared Owls, 458 House Wrens, or 568 Lincoln's Sparrows banded."