International Bird Rescue is hosting a contest to encourage people to help identify and report blue-band California brown pelicans. Why should you participate? Because you’ll be helping International Bird Rescue (IBR) and California brown pelicans all in the name of science. It’s a triple win! “Since 2009, we’ve been banding brown pelicans that we’ve rehabilitated… [read more]
Brave birds
As I was walking through my neighborhood, I happened upon this fabulous sight…a bird’s nest on top of a parking sign! It appears that there aren’t any birds living in the nest at this time, but a pretty bold move don’t you think? As you can see in the background, there are several tree options… [read more]
Orange sky and black birds
Last Thursday, I finally went whale watching again! It felt like ages since my last trip. Unfortunately, the whales didn’t show, but that’s to be expected since it’s not really whale watching season in Southern California at the moment. A pod of common dolphins did grace us with their presence and approached the boat for… [read more]
Sequoia the bald eagle and animal ambassador
This weekend I had the honor of seeing Sequoia the bald eagle again at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium‘s Autumn Sea Fair. Sequoia is an an “animal ambassador” for the San Francisco Zoo and I wrote about her tragic story in a post last year. She was rescued as an eaglet, then released into the wild with… [read more]
5 cool cormorant facts
During a visit to a Southern California beach, there’s a very good chance you’ll see a mostly black bird. This bird is most likely a cormorant and it’s often spotted sitting with California brown pelicans and various gulls hanging out on rocks. From a boat, they are frequently seen flying just above the surface of… [read more]
Wesley the barn owl
I just finished reading the book “Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl,” and it was wonderful! I highly recommend it to everyone, you don’t have to be an owl fan or a bird fanatic in order to appreciate this book. The book is about the author, Stacey O’Brien,… [read more]
Rescuing a hummingbird
During an August summer trip to visit my husband’s family in Michigan, I rescued a hummingbird! Here’s what happened: I was standing near the garage debating whether I should join the baseball game in the front yard or pull out a different distraction to engage my nephew and niece. As I was mulling over the… [read more]
Track and field pigeon
Recently, I saw another odd looking pigeon at the Ahmanson Theater in downtown Los Angeles. As you can tell in the photo above, the pigeon is a pretty amber brown color with white tail feathers. What you can’t tell from the photo is that this pigeon was running all over the place and let me… [read more]
Tracking the albino pigeon
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been slightly obsessed with an albino pigeon I spotted during the middle of January. Of course at the time I did not have my camera or phone with me since I was out on a walk of the Palms neighborhood (Palms is the oldest community in Los Angeles… [read more]
House finch in the house
Last spring, I was working at my computer and heard the strangest noise, it was a rapid thunk, thunk, thunk coming from the back porch area. Baffled, I tiptoed to the back of our apartment and looked out and there was a tiny bird having a field day ripping off threads from this synthetic material… [read more]