Published: November 09, 2008 12:53 am         

Fairmont man’s work part of Project Owlnet

Joey Herron has successfully banded saw-whet, one of smallest North American owls

VALLEY FALLS STATE PARK — A waxing half-moon hangs over the ridge top on this cool night in late fall, illuminating the surrounding terrain.

It’s a compelling vista: the jagged, dark masses of other ridge tops to the north, miles away; the black splotch of Rock Lake hundreds of feet below.

It’s a clear night on the Dogwood Trail at Valley Falls State Park. The stars sparkle on an ocean-blue backdrop.

The temperature is in the low 50s and dropping, but with a multi-pocketed fisherman’s vest on over a sweater, it’s comfortable.

Joey Herron, 50, of East Fairmont, a birder since he was 12, is checking his “mist nets.”

He’s trying to snare a saw-whet owl.

The tennis ball-sized winged predator is one of the smallest North American owls.

It’s also one of the most unknown. It flies and hunts only at night.

“I would guess that 99.9 percent of the people around here have never seen a saw-whet owl,” Herron said.

He’s one of only about 2,000 “Master Banders,” a volunteer corps licensed by the federal Interior Department to monitor and do research on wild birds. He has a field biology degree from Glenville State College (Class of 1980), an achievement that grew out of his passion for studying birds.

“It took me 25 years to see my first saw-whet,” something that took a birding trip to Canada to accomplish.

Scientific field studies require protected habitats, environments that will not be disturbed by man. The longer a study is done, the more valid are its findings, Herron said. He files his reports by e-mail to a network of other banders and to a national bird-banding laboratory in Patuxent, Md. He also does field studies every spring and fall at Jackson’s Mill on other bird species.

Herron’s work on the saw-whet owl is part of Project Owlnet, a national long-term study. Hearing about a banding station in Garrett County, Md., he decided to start one locally.

Ron Fawcett, the park’s superintendent, is an ally. During the last three falls, Fawcett let Herron set his nets out on the trail.

But Herron had to do his banding in his vehicle. The process involves weighing and examining the captured owl, and also photographing its features, including the molt pattern or age of its wing feathers.

It doesn’t harm the docile owls. Each is released to continue its journey. Herron believes they are easy to handle because they don’t fear man.

With Fawcett’s support, he won permission this year to erect a 10-foot by 20-foot, wooden “banding cabin” near the trail head. Herron paid for the shelter himself. He wants to use it to teach small groups of children and adult birders in the future.

Fawcett also sees Herron’s study fulfilling the park’s educational mission.

“I’ve been a hunter all my life and lived in the woods, but I never knew about these owls,” said Fawcett, 58.

“They’re so small that if you’re walking in the woods in daylight looking for them you could overlook them real easy,” he said.

But the chocolate-striped saw-whet owls are in the night skies over West Virginia from October through most of November.

The stealthy visitor from the vast spruce and fir forests around the Great Lakes and in Canada flies hundreds of miles every fall to the south and warmer climes. They’re also looking for food. They like deer mice, shrews and voles.

Herron’s man-made spiderweb runs for more than 100 feet.

He stakes the nets in a straight line, stretching them on an east-west axis on one side of the trail.

Their hair-thin, dark-colored strands make them invisible. The nets rise over a man’s head, to a height of about 7 feet.

His lure is an audiotape of a male saw-whet owl’s call. The “toot-toot” mimics that of a turning whetstone, a sound familiar to lumberjacks sharpening their saws.

“They’re coming in from the north, so I chose this more open spot in the woods,” Herron said, leading a reporter and a photographer to his nets. He tries to man his banding station as many nights as possible during the migratory season, from after dusk to around midnight. During the day, he’s a claims representative for Social Security.

In 2005, he banded seven owls. In 2006, he got three, and last fall, he got 49. Last year was an “irruption” year for the owl, an occasional spike in population.

Last Thursday night, he had trapped 32 for the season.

He got two more that night, one a female and one “unknown,” a youngster whose sex is hard to determine.

Back in the banding cabin, the female fits easily when he gently stuffs it, head-first, into a small, empty, frozen orange juice can. The process is used to check its weight.

“If you take the feathers off of them there wouldn’t be a whole lot of owl there,” he said. Ones that weigh more than 86 grams are female.

About two-thirds of the owl’s skull is taken up by its eye sockets, a testament to its tremendous vision. Right behind its eyes are its ears, an organ scientists also study to understand how they too help it detect its prey in leaf litter.

“Somebody who catches my birds is going to do the same thing I’m doing,” he said of the examination.

Outside, the moon has dipped below the ridge line. His wife, Rosemary “Roe” Lucent Herron, is waiting at home.

“She’s an ‘owl widow,’” he said.

Suddenly, his cell phone chirps. It’s his wife.

“Hello? I got one in my hand right here and they’re (the reporter and photographer) just going crazy,” Herron tells her.

“The first time we checked the nets tonight we got her,” he replies.

Assuring her he would be home soon, he ended the call.

“I’ve been doing field work for 30 years and I still love it.”

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

     

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