We recently attended an evening presentation at the Vassar College Ecological Preserve about their Northern Saw-Whet Owl (aka NSWO) research program. You can read more about both that and the owls elsewhere on the Intertubes, but I was impressed by the owl handling process.
NSWOs arrive from the mist net (the location of which the researchers do not describe in any detail, for obvious reasons) in a bulk carrier made of small tin cans strapped together with duct tape:
Another container holds the Owl Under Test while being weighed:
They express their obvious displeasure at this treatment by clacking their beaks (“KLOK! KLOK!”) and, if given the slightest opportunity, latching onto a finger:
Their claws will give you a nasty puncture wound or eight in a heartbeat; note how their feet remain carefully captured at all times. Despite that, the researchers sported many hand scars. FWIW, the owls are murder on mice and other critters, but evidently look a lot like lunch to larger owls and hawks.
NSWOs obey the general rule that anything with ears enjoys being scratched behind them. It may be reflex, rather than true bliss, but it works:
After weighing, measuring, blood-sampling, and stroking, the handler takes each owl outdoors, gives it a minute to reset its eyes for night flight, and releases it.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
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2 responses to “Northern Saw-Whet Owls at Vassar”
My father used to clean Common Starling nest boxes and let them hang through the winter. One spring he checked what’s inside a box. It was decorated with chickadees’ feathers and the skulls of the birdies were on the ground. After that he felt antipathy towards The Eurasian Pygmy Owl.
Around here, starlings come in such huge flocks that we figure they can find their own nesting sites.
Now, if we could keep the sparrows out of the wren boxes, that’d be a step in the right direction… those entrance reducers didn’t work at all!