Barr Lake Fun!

What a fun day! My friend Carol mentioned that Barr Lake was hosting a Fall Birding Festival. They had a bird banding station, rescued birds to meet, birding walks,kids 

activities etc. Sounded like fun so we headed out there bright and early this morning. 

 We decided to head over to the banding station first. Neither of us had ever seen how they band birds, so we were excited to go check it out. On the way over we spotted some snowy egrets. In this first pic, you can see a nice stream of bird poop! 

So they have a nice set up of these special nets to catch birds. The birds caught get put in a cloth bag and brought to the banding area. Meredith McBurney is a biologist and licensed bird bander. She and her crew did a great job of showing us how the birds get banded and sharing info about each bird. Then a few of us had the opportunity to help release the bird. Meredith would place the bird in our hand on their back. Then we would gently flip them into the other hand and they would take off! Both Carol and I had that opportunity and it was amazing!


 Here is a pic of a hermit thrush......

Here's a female wilson's warbler.......

Here's a male wilson's warbler. We learned these warblers start in Canada and are making their way to central america. They fly at night and then stop some where to eat and build up body fat for the next leg of their flight! Crazy! 

So after the bird banding fun, we took a ride on the eagle express. It's just a little tram that hold about 10 people. We slowly drove out to the gazebo, looking for birds along the way. Now I have walked out to the gazebo many times. It's about 1.5 miles. So it was a treat  to get a ride. We stopped at the gazebo and walked out to the end. We saw the usual suspects such as cormorants, grebes and pelicans. But they were too far out for a pic.
So we headed back to the Nature Center to check out the other activities. 

 There were at least 5-6 different organizations that rescue injured birds at the event. Of course the goal is always to release the bird back to the wild if at all possible. But if that is not possible, they get a job as an ambassador to educate us humans.

There was an osprey, a few swainson's hawks, a bald eagle and this beautiful barn owl! I had to get a pic of this beauty!

Besides birds, there were some cool insects. This caterpillar will become a moth....

There were lots of these insects too.....

Besides the hawks, owls and eagles, there was this kookaburra. We never found out why as they are not native to the US but he was cool to see. And if you remember the the song "kookaburra sits in the old gum tree", feel free to start singing!

Finally it was time to head home. As we drove out, this young swainson's hawk posed for us!

Well, that was a blast! If you live in the Denver area, I highly recommend checking out the bird banding. They are continuing to band until early October and visitors are welcome. check out the Barr lake website for more info.....Thanks Carol! That was a great idea!