The fourth!

Most years for the fourth of July the Palomarin interns makes a float for the Bolinas parade. It's often a bird from around here that the public would recognize. This year we put together an acorn woodpecker, and in our opinion, it turned out great! We all had a really great time as we marched down the street (about 3 blocks, REAL slowly) carrying the float and blasted the woodpecker's calls on a loud speaker. It was amazing how many people were there watching, dressed up in all sorts of crazy, skimpy, patriotic, cute, scary, funny outfits. It was not your normal parade, because while it had a patriotic theme in some ways, it was more about fun within the community than celebrating Independence Day, which I really appreciated.

Also, I ran into George Stubbs there, nice surprise indeed.

Loaded up at 8am, barely fit!




Interns made acorn shirts, with this on the back (acorn woodpecker banding codes, cool, right?)


Interns (Melissa and Todd missing)


Marching away


Libby was most excited


Heading to the yard we drop the float off in every year


Check out the rects!


The float was left behind for a few days for the public to further enjoy (peeking out over the fence)



Before the parade every year there is a tug-of-war across the mouth of the lagoon between Stinson Beach and Bolinas (neighboring towns). There is a massive rope strung across with a boat in the middle doing some officiating, each side gets 20-30 people (not sure how many, but equal numbers on both sides), and they pull. It was very well attended, and very exciting! The Bolinas women won, which was exciting, as there were three PRBO members pulling, and the Stinson Beach men won, but who really cares, Stinson Beach sucks anyway.



Renee, winning


More fourth pictures to come.