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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
An annual survey of nocturnal owls in Wood Buffalo National Park has found a couple of surprises.

A great grey owl, similar to this one, is among the owls heard in surveys in Wood Buffalo National Park. This year's survey was recently completed. - photo courtesy of John David McKinnon, Wood Buffalo National Park

Last year, the survey, which is based on listening for owl calls, found there was a barred owl in the NWT section of the park.

"According to the range maps, they're not supposed to be this far north," said Sharon Irwin, a resource technician with the park and the survey organizer.

This year, a volunteer also heard the call of a northern pigmy owl.

"They're a really tiny little owl and, according to the maps, they weren't supposed to be this far north, either," Irwin said.

The northern pigmy owl has a "really cool call" that sounds like 'who cooks for you,' she noted. "They're pretty distinct."

That owl was also heard in the NWT section of the park.

Such owl surveys are done all over Canada. Wood Buffalo conducted its survey for the third year in co-operation with the Beaverhill Bird Observatory, east of Edmonton.

In the park, five different survey routes were each covered twice for a total of 10 nights. The first survey of the routes was between March 20 and April 10 and the second was between April 11 and May 5.

There were four survey routes along roads just south of Fort Smith in the northern section of the park, while the one route in the NWT was at Little Buffalo River.

"We've been getting owls on all the routes," Irwin said.

The survey is done by participants driving the routes and stopping at predetermined distances to play a CD of owl calls provided by the Beaverhill Bird Observatory. They then listen for owls.

"Each route has 10 stops and they're 1.6 km apart," Irwin explained. "The reason for that distance is it's kind of the distance you can hear owls. You're hoping you're not hearing owls from the previous station."

She noted boreal owls are by far the most common in the park.

"In the second survey, we heard 30 boreal owls on the five routes, which is quite a few," she said, adding that one great horned owl, two great gray owls and one northern saw-whet were also heard.

The survey is also looking to determine the number of owls.

"That's something you can compare year to year, but again it's kind of one of those long-term monitoring things," said Irwin, who estimates it might take 20 years of surveying to determine if there are any changes in the owl population.

This year, the surveys were conducted with four staff members from Wood Buffalo National Park, six students from the Environmental and Natural Resources Technology Program at Aurora College, and five volunteers from Fort Smith.

Irwin hopes to get even more volunteers involved next year by giving a presentation on owls towards the end of the winter and talking about the survey.

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