Miscellaneous Cool Stuff

So this week so far has been decently busy. We had one rainy day where we were stuck inside, but the rest of the days were pretty busy with a lot of birds. We have been catching more and more young birds, which is very cool, but also ends up being a challenge. This weekend we will be going on camping trip to Pinnacles, where we HOPEFULLY see some California Condor! 

A baby Anna's Hummingbird being fed some sugar water before being released. This guy was super fluffy and adorable!

Beautiful view of clouds passing through the mountains at the one study area.

A fledgling Mourning Dove. This guy must have JUST left its nest. It was about half the weight of an adult!

A female California Quail. These are one of the funnier birds around here. They don't fly very much, instead they scurry around awkwardly. Their call sounds like they're screaming "Chicago!"

Today we caught our first Olive-Sided Flycatcher of the season, a migrant bird. It is a VERY snappy bird. While trying to extract it from the net it kept trying to take a chunk out of me.

Here at Palo we have a few resident study species that we may particular attention to. One of these species is the Wrentit, a very feisty little bird with a lot of personality! Besides banding these study species with a silver band, like we do with all the other birds, we also color band them. Each bird gets a specific color combination. That way when we're out in the field and see a bird we can determine its identity.