I know, I know! I’m sorry it’s been over two months since my last post. Believe it or not, things have been REALLY busy here!!!! So that we all are on the same page, here’s a quick summary of my last months:
The end of April consisted of a lot of training of birds and volunteers. I had a new volunteer, Kelsey, start off with a big bang! Not only was she excited about working with the birds, but so were her instructors :). Kelsey just finished her first year of college, working toward her degree in Education. With just a couple weeks of handling under her belt, she asked if she could bring Teasdale to class while she gave a presentation. Of course! Then there were a couple more of those appearances we had to make. They both did fabulous!
Next on the agenda was taking the birds down to the city auditorium for a booth at the Lions’ Club Arbor Day Tree Giveaway event. Hayabusa and Teasdale joined us and they made a huge impact on the crowd. It’s still surprising how many of our local folks have no idea that this bird program is here and available to them. It was a great way to introduce a bunch of folks to the birds. And, it gave Kelsey a chance to improve her public speaking skills!
The next big thing was a photo shoot for the Cody Camera Club. I would love to call myself a photographer (unfortunately I lack the time and money to make that dream a reality) so I was very excited to invite the photographers over for a semi-natural peregrine falcon photo shoot. Needless to say, Hayabusa was a perfect model. Except for that darn wing!
The beginning of May was incredibly hectic. In addition to daily life, I was prepping for several big presentations that were very different from my normal ones. First, I took Isham to Laramie, Wyoming, to be a presenter at the “Women in Science” conference. What a great program! I gave three workshops on what I do, and having Isham there was icing on the cake. Because my friend lives there and has empty mews for birds to stay in, we made it a bit more worthwhile and booked a few extra programs while we were there. Unfortunately, due to government red tape, our program down in Ft. Collins had to be canceled, which was a real shame because we had so much fun there last year. Somehow I even managed to get a little amateur birding in as well.
Before returning to Cody, I picked up one of the new interns for this summer, Nicole. She’s car-less this summer and since I was already in Laramie, why not bring her back? It also meant she got to see the last of our outreach programs before we focused all our attention on summer stuff and see the programs I had been worrying about for months!
The Center was one of the hosts for the inaugural Spring Into Yellowstone Birding & Wildlife Festival. It was about five days of trips, lectures, and films all about the wildlife of the Yellowstone Region. I had agreed to present two programs during the festival (which attracted folks from around the world). My first program was Back From the Brink which highlighted the history of wildlife preservation in North America, focusing on the peregrine falcon. I stepped way out of my box and put together a PowerPoint presentation and everything! The next evening was Survival Strategies of Birds of Prey. This was a lot more comfortable for me as it was all about the amazing adaptations that raptors have. The best part—Kateri made her first appearance INSIDE the building! We learned that we have another diva on our hands!
Once the Spring into Yellowstone festival was over I thought I could relax. Turns out I was wrong. It was time to get ready for the summer! Not only did I still need to outline and write up a brand new program to present (which had an additional bird but needed to be no longer, timewise), I also had to get our intern from last year, Brandon, back in the swing of things and train two new interns as well! Busy busy busy!
Luckily, Brandon remembered most of what we taught him last year and our new interns, Nicole and Katie, are fantastic! Brandon is already comfortable working with Kateri and “the girls” are presenting programs and working their way up the bird line.
So…now we’re mostly caught up. You probably figured out that it is quite difficult for me to keep up with the blogs in the summer. I am hopeful, however, that Katie or Nicole (or both of them) will accept the responsibility of blogging through August for me. Keep your eyes peeled for new blogs and as always, thanks for your support. Hopefully we’ll see you in person someday if we haven’t already!
