Bird Banding @ Presque Isle!

For labor day, one of my bff's KC, and I decided to head to Presque Isle to get one last day of summer in.

We wanted to start the day out on a free pontoon boat ride, but even after KC arriving only minutes after 10am (you sign up at 10am for all rides that day), the 11am and 1pm rides were already booked!

Bummer!



So we decided to take a walk around Misery Bay instead.



KC saw a path, and said "should we go down here?"
And I said "it looks like drug dealing".

It was just a random path that didn't seem to lead to anywhere, with a bunch of cars parked all randomly. So as we stood there trying to decide if we wanted to take the chance, a park ranger pulled up to us and said "do you ladies know where you are going?" Nope. Not a clue. Us - "We are just walking around." Park ranger - "You might want to check this out. It might be bird banding."

Does anyone else know what bird banding is?



Yeah. We didn't either. So we had to check it out.



Thanks to Wikipedia:
Bird ringing or bird banding is a technique used in the study of wild birds, by attaching a small, individually numbered, metal or plastic tag to their legs or wings, so that various aspects of the bird's life can be studied by the ability to re-find the same individual later. This can include migration, longevity, mortality, population studies, territoriality, feeding behaviour, and other aspects that are studied by ornithologists

It was pretty cool! They actually let me release a bird they had caught in one of the nets (after they wrote down a ton of information on it). That little thing was so gosh darn cute! I was scared I was going to crush it. It was so fragile in my massive hands!



I definitely recommend checking it out if you are an animal/bird lover! Here is their website with more information. They catch some pretty awesome looking birdies!!

Thanks to KC for wanting to get involved in what looked like a drug deal (not that I really know what that looks like), because we wouldn't have discovered this awesome piece of what makes Presque Isle State Park one awesome place.

Fun Visitors!

We've been getting quite the visitors at our new house:


Mr. Snapping Turtle


Miss Humming Bird


So . . .this was from June maybe? And I had to brighten the picture up so you could actually see, but all those yellow dots are lightning bugs! The one night we looked out and it was like a Christmas light show. They were all up and down our back yard. It was crazy. Must have been mating night.


Lots of finches! We've had other birds too, but these are the prettiest!


Lots of hummingbirds! They are the coolest birds ever! (Ignore the nastiness at the top of the feeder. I finally found a bottle cleaner long enough from Wild Birds Unlimited so it's clean now.)


And we actually got another feeder that they can sit on (so they don't have to flap their little wings like crazy when they eat). It's so neat to see them just sitting. Will have to take some pictures of that too.

Some things we've learned about hummingbirds:
1) they are so pretty
2) they are soooooo tiny
3) they have this cute little chirp they do
4) they will actually get really close to you. they want their food. (we might attempt feeding from our hands one day.)
5) when they fly close to you, their wings flapping is such a loud buzzing noise
6) they are very territorial. if one hummingbird is feeding, another will come and chase it away.
7) don't use red food dye (it doesn't matter. clear attracts fine. and supposedly the red dye might cause brain tumors in them).
8) you don't have to boil your mixture (4 parts water, 1 part sugar)
9) they aren't as expensive to feed as the other birds, but i have to clean their feeders every week (at least). it's pretty nasty.
10) they are afraid of bumble bees (a bumble bee was challenging a humming bird to the feeder. bumble bee won.)

Hope you enjoyed meeting all our visitors too!

Mommy's Favorite

how to tell if you are mommy's favorite . . . .

got emailed to me from my mommy-in-law