Chillicothe Field Trip 10/21/11

At around 5 in the evening, the Orno team set out from Athens on a journey to Chillicothe. The purpose of our quest was to capture Eastern Screech, and Saw-Whet Owls. I stumbled out of the van in a slightly groggy state, but was immediately awakened upon seeing two golden-crowned Kinglets, and a Gray Catbird being processed by Kelly. After watching her record the birds sex, wing length, tail length, and mass, myself and a large group of students went to view the mist nests. We were very lucky to find that a few NOCA's and a CACH were trapped in the nets. We watched intently as Deborah desperately tried to remove the NOCA without getting bitten, and then we watched more intently as Deborah stopped caring about getting bitten. All I can say is that Cardinal was pissed!!! After watching these wonderful results of avian evolution get processed we worked our way up to Kelly's cabin. It was at this point that we ate Miles delicious chili, and began performing owl dances. Around 11 at night we caught out first owl and it was amazing! It was so cute, and I could not get over how still it remained. It was almost as if it was a stuffed animal. Kelly performed a series of measurements on the owl. But none as memorable as when she turned him upside down, placed him in a cone and measured him mass. Second only to this was when the black light was shined on the Screech Owls wing and an inflorescence was shown. This showed that the owl was in his first few years of life. After this we headed back the buses and I slept the rest of the way home knowing that the field trip had been a success.