Clear and cold. -3F at 7am.
We went out at about 10 to check on the bait, and there were 5 ravens feeding. We decided to give it a go. Derek dropped me off with the detonator (which had fresh batteries this time) and went back to watch the birds. While I was lying on the side of the road waiting, a raven flew up to a powerpole just north of me. I figured it would give me away and that would be it, but it didn't. After a few minutes, the 5 birds were in place and ready to go. Derek said fire, and the net was off.
2 ravens and 1 magpie caught! Three had gotten out. Either the bait was 5 ft too far away, or the strings holding the weights to the back of the net were too frozen in the snow. Either way, we caught some birds. One was banded. It was a HY bird that we caught the other day in the big capture. The other was an adult; hopefully a breeder. We reset the net and put a new shell in the launcher in hopes that some birds would eventually come back or new one would come in.
The G&F called with 3 more elk for bait, so those are now in the back of the blue truck (thanks Jon & Marilyn). I checked on the bait on the way back, and 1-2 ravens were feeding. That's a good sign for future captures, hopefully.
Derek and I put out two of the three elk to see if we could attract a big number of birds this week out in the study area. Let's call this the NER bait.
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