Recently we went to the Annual International Migratory Bird Day at Beaver Lake Park put on by the Victoria Natural History Society, Rocky Point Bird Observatory and the CRD Regional Parks. It was so much fun and I watched them band a hummingbird. The hummers are trapped in a feeder trap and very gently banded as they are so teeny tiny. (This week at ABC it is the letter "t" so I will be trying to add them to my theme.)
First they tuck a little blue tissue tunic around the hummingbird's torso and tie with a clip. I believe this is a Rufous Hummingbird. She seems pretty tranquil and tolerant. (for non-blogging readers..I am using "t" words for a game we bloggers play...I have not lost my mind yet.)
Then they measure the leg to see the size and if it is swollen. She waits patiently "Here I am all wrapped up for you".
The band is applied with a tool. They check the feathers to see the condition of the bird. On larger birds they would blow on the feathers and could tell if it was a female; if the breast feathers were missing it was female and sitting on a nest and they would check the wing coverts to see the health of the larger birds.
If you lay a hummingbird on its back it just lays there motionless in a trance. They were counting the shinny throat spots but I am not sure why. This hummer came back twice it liked it so much!
They also had tables and booths from local nature organizations that were full of interesting and educational items.
I think this was a swallows nest, I had to take a picture of the beautiful feathers.
This is a photo of the bones of a hummingbird.
More pictures of the tables and displays.
Here a youngster gets a close up view of a local dragonfly.
Then I was totally shocked and so happy to see this below. This is a nest we took into a local Nature House last year from my son's house. The baby hummingbirds were just about to fly when we had a terrible cold spell.They nest in February. The babies did not make it. I was so upset. We took it to the Nature House and it is now used as a teaching tool for the childrens' programs.
Here is the nest below when it was still viable. These are Anna's Hummingbirds.
Here is the momma on the nest last year. She would have gone on and just made another nest. Still it was very traumatic to me.
Then I thought of another hummingbird picture that was sent to me.
Picture credit on above picture to Muzza, my talented brother-in-law, as I did not take this one picture but all the rest are my shots. I was not there that day when a friend had a hummer get trapped in the garage and he had to rescue it. It was fine. Flew away. I hope I get more of Muzza's photos to share with you.
Back now to the Bird Day. The Pacific Northwest Raptors came and brought three birds. They had a Turkey Vulture who seemed quite tame. He liked to play with daisies or he would nip your fingers. They were on tethers.
They brought a Peregrine Falcon. Very fast flying.
Also they had a lovely Harris Hawk.
They did flight demonstrations. However this turned out to be most entertaining....both the hawk and the falcon promptly flew away to nearby trees. The handler had to work quite hard with tempting and tantalizing dishes to get them back. I am sure the birds really enjoyed that. These birds from the Raptor Center are very well looked after and it is an incredible place to visit in Duncan, B.C.
Well that is it, I tried to get lots of "T" words in even though my text was quite terse.
Special thanks to the Victoria Natural History Society, Rocky Point Bird Observatory and the CRD Parks for putting on such an amazing display. I can't wait till next year to go again.
The memes for this week are: ABC Wednesday the letter "t". Thank you to these memes for allowing bloggers to share their story. I may not remember to enter them all but I still list them as this is the quick way for me to do it. (For non-bloggers, Memes are games we bloggers play to get together.)
Show off Your Shot
Our World Tuesday
Sweet Shot Tuesday
Tuesday Tweets
World Bird Wednesday
ABC Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday with Words
Nature Notes Wednesday
Outdoors Wednesday
edit note: I sometimes have to republish after I see how many errors I made or links not working.