July 8, 2011

Female goldfinch
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This birds leg appears to have been previously broken, and despite somewhat of an angle, it has healed, and is sturdy as ever.
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July 6, 2011

More bluebirds

Still feeding young, which inhabit this hybrid cliff swallow nest tissue box
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July 5, 2011

Second best

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Second best "float"
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Tug-o-war

Here's a video of the womens

Bewick's Wren

It turns out that I banded this bird 10 days ago, because though you can't see it here, it is color banded and I was able to look it up. It is one of the parents of the nest in one of the chickadee boxes.

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July 4, 2011

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!
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Interns made acorn shirts, with this on the back (acorn woodpecker banding codes, cool, right?)
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Interns (Melissa and Todd missing)
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Marching away
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Libby was most excited
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Heading to the yard we drop the float off in every year
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Check out the rects!
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The float was left behind for a few days for the public to further enjoy (peeking out over the fence)
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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.

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Renee, winning
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More fourth pictures to come.