5 days off

Its just the start of the spring banding season, and since I am staying on, they let me take 5 days off in a row! Great timing too. My parents flew in Wednesday, spent that afternoon and Thursday with me, my brother got in Thursday night, we all hanged out around Point Reyes on Friday, had a wonderful pizza party with my friends in Oakland, and then watched CUT dominate a weekend of frisbee, winning their second (of 2) tournament of the winter! Great visit by all.

And now some pictures:







Bishop pine




At Abbott's Lagoon










My BRO!


Horse tails of some kind


Open horse tails


On the coastal trail






Eggs?


Lil hermit crab


In Muir woods, checking out redwoods:








Small redwoods

Raptors from before

Also, I'd been meaning to put up more of my dad's pictures from a previous job, but forget until just now, as I lay in bed, unable to sleep.

Now these guys were tough to get out...

Psha

Not much new here. Owls are real slow for some reason, but I still have faith that they'll pick up. This morning someone brought us a roughed grouse that hit a window and died, so we plucked, gutted, grilled and ate it. It's was chewy, good though.


Photo by my pa

How I feel a lot

Photo by my pa

Owlets

It's around 70 here right now, which would be great normally, but the birds do not feel the urgency to fly south with the temperatures so high, which has resulted in a grand total of ZERO birds caught today, and only eight owls last night. But have no fear visitors, one owl is guaranteed...I hope.

View from the overlook

Photo by my pa


Photo by my pa

Me and me ma

Photo by my pa

Adult shin

Photo by my pa

H

Today the weight is up with a northern harrier and a goshawk, but it's still been a tad slow, but at least it's still beautiful out.

A couple people have asked if the hawks ever try to bite, say my face. For the most part the answer is no. Shins and saw whets are too small to do any damage so they don't even try. Red tails, harriers, goshawks, and the like seem as though they'd want to take a piece of ear or something, but they never make an attempt and mostly just leave their mouths gaping open. Falcons on the other hand will tear you to shreds it given the chance. Eagles? Don't know, but if I get a chance, I'll find out and get back to you.

Here's that harrier. In flight these guys look quite large, but as Larry put it: "They're all primaries." With huge wingspans they're really hard to catch in the nets, and with better eyesight than most of the raptors they rarely even come down to check us out. So this was only our second.


Peregrine in flight

Photo by my pa

My dad's camera manages to take far better pictures of the owls, larger flash (sometimes using a piece of paper to dull it), better lens, and skills to pay the bills.

Photo by my pa

Parents weekend

This past weekend my parents came out for a visit and got a chance to see some of what I've been doing. Though the days were really (very) slow with hawks, they got to see a few shins come in and at least get a good idea of how exactly things function at the station. The nights were a different story however, with two of our biggest nights at 85 and 69 saw whets and it got kind of crazy.

Despite the lack of hawks and a bit of rain, my dad came out of the trip with an awesome set of pictures which I will gradually be putting up pictures from.


Photo by my pa


Photo by my pa

The day before they came we actually had a great hawk day, with 4 goshawks and a redtail. RT on left, G on right:




Gos scream a lot


American pipit's long back talon


My parents did get some stellar rainbows


Black backed woodpecker


Saw whet with a white talon