(Photo and story by Pam Hunt)

The Northern Saw-whet Owl is New Hampshire’s smallest owl and can be found throughout the state most of the year. Although relatively common, it is rarely seen, and usually only heard if you make a concerted effort. Unlike the other owls that breed in the state, saw-whets are migratory, and to better understand their movements biologists have been banding them for decades. More recently, Motus technology has entered the game, and for this month’s Motus feature, I found that seven different tagged saw-whets passed through New Hampshire during late October 2024. Here are their stories:

• An owl banded on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River on September 28 worked its way south to Quebec City by October 4, and then passed over several towers in western Maine from October 8-13. On October 17 it was detected by our newest tower at Red Hill in Moultonborough, and three days later by one in New Hampton. Where this owl was after October 20 is anyone’s guess, and for all we know it’s still hanging out in west-central New Hampshire somewhere. (Note that it took around three weeks to travel 350 miles, something many songbirds might do in a single evening.)
• A second Quebec bird passed over Cape Horn State Forest in Northumberland on October 17.
• The first of five owls tagged in downeast Maine (east of Acadia National Park) headed west over Bangor and Lewiston in mid-October and on October 22 one of these passed over Red Hill on its way to western Massachusetts, where it was last detected on October 31.
• A second Maine owl seems to have wandered north into northwest Maine before circling back south and being picked up by a tower in Berlin on October 28.
• The third downeast bird made a big jump between Lewiston on October 24 and the Massabesic Center on October 28.
• The other two Maine birds took more southerly routes. On October 24 one passed, in sequence, over towers in Exeter, eastern Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. This was likely a non-stop flight, and based on the three detections the owl was probably traveling at 50-60 miles per hour. After resting for a few days, it was next detected heading west through Connecticut on October 28-29.
• The final bird was tagged in Maine on October 18, passed over mid-coast Maine on October 24, and was last detected by the Exeter tower on November 2.

These Northern Saw-whet Owls are part of a much larger Motus project that has tagged 161 individuals in Canada, Maine, and Pennsylvania. All the resulting tracks, including those of the birds detected in New Hampshire, can be seen here.