Rufous Bum - my yard
Barbara working with a bird
Barbara finishing up a session
slide show of pictures i've taken
Showing posts with label Hummingbird Monitoring Network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hummingbird Monitoring Network. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Yesterday was one of my days to volunteer at the Hummingbird Monitoring Network, Central California site, which is located at Indian Peaks Ranch, about an hour from here, in Mariposa, California. It's a nonprofit organization made up of a group of scientists, citizens, land managers, and property owners who are dedicated to the conservation of hummingbird diversity and abundance throughout the New World. For further information, you can contact:
THE HUMMINGBIRD MONITORING NETWORK
PO Box 115
Patagonia, AZ 85624
http://www.hummonnet.org/.
The Central California site is located at Indian Peaks Ranch, owned by Barbara and Dwane Robinson. It is located on top of the world. Not only do they have a beautiful home there, designed and built by themselves (they are both architects) but also a guest ranch, where they have guests who visit from all over the world - http://www.indianpeaksranch.com/
Since the monitoring starts right at dawn, and it takes an hour for me to get there in the dark, I set my alarm for 3:00 AM, fixed coffee, asked my friend, Dixie, if she would come over after dawn to open the door for my pets to get out, and off I went. I have to drive reasonably slow at night because of deer and critters on the roads, but this time I only saw one deer, a opossum, and a wild turkey.
Barbara and Dwane do all the scientific work, and the volunteers work in hourly shifts, for 5 hours, helping with the technical record keeping and the trapping of the birds. It is definitely a finely tuned, impeccable, and yes, scientific operation. It seems that this location has the highest turn-out of the birds, both new and returns.
Yesterday we did 112 birds, mostly Annas, and a few Black Chinned. (The BC remind me of the Costas, with their beautiful purple necks.) I have a few pictures I will share of the operation and area, but Barbara does not want us to show any of the trapping process, since she has overheard people comment on how they think they can do it themselves. (Why they think they would choose to do so is beyond me, but some people can be stupid.) She allows some of her guests to visit the operation for a few minutes as long as they are quiet and stay out of the way, otherwise it stays private. The trapping is a very simple process, and does not injure the birds in any way, and I love to be up-close and intimate with them, even though they don't feel the same about me!
When we are finished with our 5 hours, we have our brown bag lunches together, and Barbara has us guess how many birds were done that day - the prize being a yummy piece of chocolate.
On my ride home yesterday, I saw the wild turkey. Never too sleepy to keep the photogenic eyes open! (I got good practice with that "eye" when we were stationed on Guam, and a Guamanian friend had shown me this tiny, battered road, on the other side of the island, that ran along the beaches. So the kids and I would cruise along this little road, hanging out of the windows, keeping our finely tuned and seaball-manic eyes out for glass floats that were hiding in the grassy boonies.)
THE HUMMINGBIRD MONITORING NETWORK
PO Box 115
Patagonia, AZ 85624
http://www.hummonnet.org/.
The Central California site is located at Indian Peaks Ranch, owned by Barbara and Dwane Robinson. It is located on top of the world. Not only do they have a beautiful home there, designed and built by themselves (they are both architects) but also a guest ranch, where they have guests who visit from all over the world - http://www.indianpeaksranch.com/
Since the monitoring starts right at dawn, and it takes an hour for me to get there in the dark, I set my alarm for 3:00 AM, fixed coffee, asked my friend, Dixie, if she would come over after dawn to open the door for my pets to get out, and off I went. I have to drive reasonably slow at night because of deer and critters on the roads, but this time I only saw one deer, a opossum, and a wild turkey.
Barbara and Dwane do all the scientific work, and the volunteers work in hourly shifts, for 5 hours, helping with the technical record keeping and the trapping of the birds. It is definitely a finely tuned, impeccable, and yes, scientific operation. It seems that this location has the highest turn-out of the birds, both new and returns.
Yesterday we did 112 birds, mostly Annas, and a few Black Chinned. (The BC remind me of the Costas, with their beautiful purple necks.) I have a few pictures I will share of the operation and area, but Barbara does not want us to show any of the trapping process, since she has overheard people comment on how they think they can do it themselves. (Why they think they would choose to do so is beyond me, but some people can be stupid.) She allows some of her guests to visit the operation for a few minutes as long as they are quiet and stay out of the way, otherwise it stays private. The trapping is a very simple process, and does not injure the birds in any way, and I love to be up-close and intimate with them, even though they don't feel the same about me!
When we are finished with our 5 hours, we have our brown bag lunches together, and Barbara has us guess how many birds were done that day - the prize being a yummy piece of chocolate.
On my ride home yesterday, I saw the wild turkey. Never too sleepy to keep the photogenic eyes open! (I got good practice with that "eye" when we were stationed on Guam, and a Guamanian friend had shown me this tiny, battered road, on the other side of the island, that ran along the beaches. So the kids and I would cruise along this little road, hanging out of the windows, keeping our finely tuned and seaball-manic eyes out for glass floats that were hiding in the grassy boonies.)
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