There's a lot that isn't known about the tiny saw-whet owls that draw Dave Brinker to Assateague each year -- including the origins of the name.
One theory holds that the name is onomatopoeic: it sounds like the call they make.
He doesn't think so; more likely, he says, it derived from what French-Canadian loggers called them a century ago.
The little bird with the funny name comes to Maryland from the Midwest and Canada, its primary breeding range area in North America. At least 10 pairs breed in Maryland, says Mr. Brinker, all of them in Western Maryland's mountains.
Mr. Brinker's banding efforts are part of a patchy network in the Eastern United States. The longest-operating banding station is in Cape May, N.J. A woman in Maine puts out nets sporadically for a month; a man in Wye Mills does the same.
"We need folks in Maine, Massachusetts, southern Ohio and Arkansas," Mr. Brinker says.
His theory -- and so far, it's just that -- is that the owls will breed in the mountains because it's cold enough for them. The coast, with its likelihood of hot days, can kill them, he says.
The birds are "cryptic" -- not easily accessible to bird-watchers. At night, they hunt mice and shrews. They're difficult to see in treetops because they're not much bigger than a pine cone.
But they have an abundance of what Mr. Brinker calls "the cuteness factor." They're small, and when you look at them, unblinking yellow eyes look back at you. And their heads swivel in a manner reminiscent of Linda Blair's in "The Exorcist."
More than 2,000 are banded each year in the Midwest, at four large raptor-banding stations, he says. The tiny metal bands give each bird a federal wildlife number and help researchers chart migration: If a bird banded in Wisconsin lands in a net on Assateague, Mr. Brinker can be reasonably sure the bird migrated at least 1,000 miles.
If a dead bird is found, the bands can be mailed to Washington (all that is required is to write "Bird Band, Washington, D.C." on the envelope.)
The saw-whet is listed as a species of "special concern" in Virginia and North Carolina and has no special status in Maryland and West Virginia, he says.
No one is sure how many saw-whets there are in North America, although researchers estimate between 100,000 and 300,000.
Over time, Mr. Brinker says, the banding numbers will begin to suggest how many of them are in Maryland. "My job is not studying saw-whets; it's my hobby. But I can use my time studying saw-whets and maybe will [the research] to somebody."