Cape May Owl Project

12/03/2024

On this we want to THANK our donors for supporting the Cape May Owl Project, and encourage everyone to consider making a tax-deductible donation to the charity of your choice. If you'd like to support the Cape May Owl Project, we'd love to have you join our growing list of donors, and you can do so at the link below.

Got more love for owls? Well we do too!!, and we support the following OTHER charities that have active owl projects right now. So if you want to spread the love, here are a few of our current favorites:

Project SNOWstorm (it's already proving to be a SNOWy year!):
https://www.gofundme.com/f/v2gcv-project-snowstorm-snowy-owl-migration-research?attribution_id=sl:f0fb75ca-a07d-464d-b857-03d2100cb8b1&utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_dash&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link

Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (supporting cutting edge owl research including the first cellular tags on Boreal Owl!!):
https://www.givemn.org/organization/Hawkridge

Friends of Whitefish Point:
Donation link is coming soon- so join their Facebook group to be the first to know!

🦉 Cape May Owl Project: Season Recap 🦉

As we reflect on this year’s season so far, here are the highlights:
- 87 owls banded, including:
- 75 Northern Saw-whet Owls (38 females, 11 males, 16 unknown)
- 5 Long-eared Owls (3 females, 1 male, 1 unknown)
- 7 Barred Owls (4 males, 2 female, 1 unknown)
- 6 transmitters deployed, giving us exciting data on stopover behavior and movement.

🛰️ What we’re learning:
Most of our tagged owls remain in Cape May, though one moved 32 miles north to a Wildlife Management Area and another pinged a cell tower 20 miles away on the Delaware Bayshore. Stopover duration is turning out to be longer than we expected—a fascinating mystery we’re eager to explore further!

While this year’s Saw-whet numbers are average for Cape May (74 banded compared to past highs of 635 in 1995), our work still provides incredible insights. Weather challenges—like strong east winds during peak migration—may have influenced owl movement, but we’re still uncovering great data to share with you.

We’ll continue banding into the off-season and deploying transmitters when we can. Stay tuned for updates and THANK YOU for your continued support!

🌐 Support our work here: https://gofund.me/48fcf638 🌐

Thank you again for all of your support! 🦉🧡
— The Cape May Owl Project Team (David, Charlie, Trish, and Mike)

🦉🌌

Rapid deployment of cutting-edge transmitters allowing us to m… David La Puma needs your support for Support the Cape May Owl Project's 2024 Tracking Research

11/28/2024

Cape May Owl Project update: 84 owls banded this season so far, including 74 Saw-whets, 5 Long-eared, & 5 Barred. 6 GPS tagged! Full recap at ->🦉 https://gofund.me/48fcf638 under "Update". Happy Thanksgiving!!

11/25/2024

Adult female Northern Saw-whet Owl resighted and flying around an hour after her release. She was looking great! Video by Charlie Roberto

11/25/2024

Two more transmitters deployed tonight! Wait…what’s that? It’s tomorrow? Oh yeah. Ok. One last night, one this morning! 😂😂

More to follow soon. In the meantime…here’s the after-second year female who got the transmitter just after 1:30am this morning.

11/19/2024

It was a bittersweet moment at Coral Ave yesterday, as we said goodbye to Maia Nguyen and Steph Bartlett for the season. They're headed back west to CA and OR, respectively. They were both hired staff at NJ Audubon's Cape May Songbird Stopover Project this fall, and then moonlighted (literally) at the Owl Project for many a late-night. They both brought with them excellent skills and wonderful personalities, and as such contributed a ton to the operations of our all-volunteer effort. Also pictured are Adehl Schwaderer, the Program Director for NJA's Cape May Bird Observatory, the Avalon Seawatcher extraordinaire, Daniel Irons, the Cape May Raptor Banding Project's Charlotte Catalano (who has also put in many hours helping with the owl project!), and Charlie Roberto, one of the principal investigators of the Cape May Owl Project. Like all who come through Cape May field jobs, they are now part of the Cape May Diaspora, and will always have a home here when they return. So here's to many returns to Maia and Steph!

11/19/2024

🦉 Cape May Owl Project Update! 🦉
Wow, what a whirlwind few weeks it has been! Thanks to your amazing support, we’ve now raised $9,000, guaranteeing SIX transmitters for the 2024 season. We can’t thank you enough! 🎉
Big milestones:
🦉 We’ve tagged our first male Northern Saw-whet Owl, a huge step forward in our research!
🦉 We’ve also tagged a FOURTH female Saw-whet Owl, bringing our season total to five transmittered owls so far.
🦉 Lately, we’ve caught more Long-eared Owls, including an after-second-year female and two hatch-year birds (male & female). They are absolutely stunning, with the females showing buffy underwing coverts and males featuring silvery white.
🦉 Bonus: Three Barred Owls, all hatch-year males, have also graced our nets. These local breeders might also be migrants—an intriguing mystery for future research!
While the weather this week looks tricky, we’re gearing up for a chance to catch more owls early next week. With migration continuing through mid-December, we’re optimistic about deploying even more transmitters—and we’re still aiming to fund 10 total units this season!
🌐 Support the project here: https://gofund.me/48fcf638 🌐
Thank you for sharing this fundraiser with your networks—it’s working! Let’s keep the momentum going and hit our goal together. ❤️
Warmest thanks,
The Cape May Owl Project Team
Charlie, Trish, Mike, and David
🦉🌌

All birds handled and banded under state and federal permits by trained and licensed banders.

📸's by Maia, Steph and David

11/13/2024

WOW! Another anonymous donation for another owl transmitter! Thank you to our generous supporter (they also supported a single transmitter earlier in the fundraiser- so they're up to 2 now!) for coming through with ANOTHER Cellular/GPS transmitter for the project. Right now we have 3 Northern Saw-whet Owls wearing transmitters, one ready to deploy (hopefully tonight) and about six more just getting the finishing touches (and testing) and will likely be ready to put out by the weekend. We're hoping for a good few nights of owls, so please wish us luck, and PLEASE help us get to our final goal of fully funding 10 transmitters! You can make a donation here, or share the link far and wide: https://gofund.me/ba193aa0

Thank you!!

The Cape May Owl Project
David, Trish, Mike and Charlie

11/10/2024

Kyle measures the bill of the Long-eared Owl as we attempt to determine whether it's a male or female (she is a female, it turns out!)

11/10/2024

It's closing time! Charlie captured a quick video of us coming back after closing the nets. It's finally cold here, which seems right, but definitely doesn't seem warm. ;)

11/10/2024

Just tallied the numbers...we're up to:
62 Northern Saw-whet Owls
3 Barred Owls
2 Long-Eared Owls
3 NSWO have GPS/Cellular transmitters
All banding and transmitter attachment is done under federal and state permits by approved individuals.

11/10/2024

🦉 Cape May Owl Project Update: What a Difference a Night Makes! 🦉
Last night was a bust—favorable winds but just too strong for the owls. Fast forward to tonight, and the predicted east winds never materialized. Instead, we had a still, crisp night under a half moon—perfect owl conditions! 🎉
After the second net check, the night came alive:
2 Northern Saw-whet Owls 🦉
1 Long-eared Owl (always a treat!)

Charlie, Aiden, and Harrison took the Long-eared and one Saw-whet to TNC Meadows parking lot for a live demo, delighting local birders who got to see these incredible owls up close.
Later in the evening, on our 10:45pm net check, we caught an adult female Northern Saw-whet Owl—the perfect candidate for one of our Flicker ULP GPS/Cellular transmitters. Under the experienced hands of CMOP's Mike Lanzone, and with help from visiting researcher Kyle Shepard, we fitted her with the new backpack. That makes three transmittered owls in 2024 so far!

The next week is looking promising for migration, and we’re eager to deploy more transmitters and share the data with you soon. Check back for updates and thank you, as always, for supporting the Cape May Owl Project! ❤️

🌐 Donate here: https://gofund.me/48fcf638 🌐

🦉🌌

11/08/2024

Here's our latest update!

Rapid deployment of cutting-edge transmitters allowing us to m… David La Puma needs your support for Support the Cape May Owl Project's 2024 Tracking Research

11/08/2024

11/08/2024

Welcome to the Cape May Owl Project page! We felt it was time to make it official on Facebook, and give our project updates a home. We look forward to engaging with you here. We are currently in the middle of a GoFundMe campaign to raise enough money for 10 or more Cellular GPS transmitters for tracking the full annual cycle of the Northern Saw-whet Owl. You can find more about the project here: https://gofund.me/bdcb9cd6

Thank you for joining us on our new page!

The Cape May Owl Project Team: David, Charlie, Trish and Mike

Note: all birds are banded and transmittered by licensed and experienced banders operating under both state and federal permits.

Rapid deployment of cutting-edge transmitters allowing us to m… David La Puma needs your support for Support the Cape May Owl Project's 2024 Tracking Research