Close Looks at Birds

I mentioned a few weeks ago a great project going on behind the scenes at CES: we've slowly been cataloging all the pictures ever taken at Chino Farm and trying to get as many of them online as possible.

Well, we've made it through the first stages, and now many of the amazing pictures taken of birds during banding at Foreman's Branch Bird Observatory (FBBO) are available online here.  The species are organized by family to the extent possible, though of course some categories have multiple families, and some birds are just hard to categorize.  But we've done our best!  It was exciting to go through all the pictures that have been taken, and realize first hand the history of the research done at FBBO.

While all of the pictures are impressive, I of course have some favorites, especially the owl and raptor pages.  The raptor page is a good example of what we hope to accomplish with these albums.  In addition to having a photo of each species, we'd like to show differences between males and females, adults and juveniles, and other variation you might see within the species.  At some point we'll also include pictures of the things banders look for when collecting information about these birds.  In addition, over time, more information about each species, including information about when certain individuals were caught, data that has been collected on those species, and possibly even sounds will be added to the pages.  But all of that, of course, takes time!  Not to mention that some of the pictures are, gasp!, on film!  All of those will have to await an intern who can scan them in.

Finally, you can also access the albums from our tables of banding data.  Now, if you are curious about a species that has been recently banded, you can click on the species name and view photos of that bird.

So as a special bonus for blog readers, here are some photos that didn't make it onto the site (yet!):

Check out these Kingfisher feet!

Most people have never seen this bird- the Common Nighthawk

Here's its relative, the Whip-poor-will

I just can't get enough of this bird, the Pileated Woodpecker

Whoa!

Here's some little screech owls

And a little fluffy one

Sharp-shinned hawk

And finally, a young Northern Bobwhite

There are so many great pictures yet to share- hope you check out the albums!  You can also see the latest in bird glamor shots by following CRFRS on facebook.


Tara Holste is the Web Content Manager for the Center for Environment & Society, as well as a recent convert to the world of birding.