Chico Days, a sucsess!

I would like to start out by thanking all of the wonderful people who donated their time to band birds at Chico Basin all around the country. I truly wish that I could do that every day of my life.  I got the experience of taking a Swainson's Thrush from the net and letting it go, and watching it fly through the forest with agility matched by no other animal. I also got to do the "run" and carry the birds in little bags as shown below.

Blue bag: Lazuli Bunting
Orange/Brown bag at bottom: Bullock's Oriole
Other bags: Swainson's Thrushes and Gray Catbirds

Although many great birds were found here, this was definately the rarest.

Worm-eating Warbler

My list is now at 305 and we are heading to New Jersey up to Maine for 8 days in about 1 week, the day after schools gets out! Before I end this post I have a bird identification challenge for all of the birders who read my blog. Here is the picture from Chico. Take a guess at what this is in the comment section below (hint, hint, it is not what you think it is)

any guesses?

Have fun birding!
Skyler Bol
Ft. Collins, CO
birds: 305

Update: I am at 280 birds and it is May 11. This weekend I am going down to Chico Basin Ranch for rare warblers. Some of my most recent birds have been a Northern Parula at Sean Walters house (thanks Sean), and a Least Flycatcher at Norma's Grove out in the Pawnee National Grasslands. Our next trip will be to the northeast flying into Philidelphia ad birding southern New Jersey on June second. I WILL post what birds we see at Chico Basin Ranch. I also just had a day last weekend with 100 birds to. I might do a blog post for that too. Skyler