Saw-whet owls are a secretive seasonal resident of Illinois unlike some of our local species that are yearlong residents that make their presence known. We’ll do a brief discussion of owl species found in the state that includes basic owl life history and behavior. From there we’ll talk about what is known about saw-whet owls and what we are trying to learn about them as part of our research. We’ll finish with a talk about good conservation practices that benefit owls and the larger ecosystem.
Michael Avara is the avian lab manager and field coordinator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He supports lab data collection and analysis on the many diverse research projects in the Ward Lab. This includes managing the Illinois Motus Network of 30 telemetry towers across the state, working to restore endangered waterbird colonies, conducting field surveys to quantify bird populations, and analyzing telemetry data to better understand migratory stopover behavior of saw-whet owls.