I finally finished the proposal for my project this afternoon. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be five pages double-spaced and I wrote five pages single-spaced, so, um...I'll have to slash a bunch of stuff before turning it in. Tomorrow I'm spending the day in the field testing out the methods and PRAYING the birds will cooperate. Saturday morning there's a 5K in a nearby state park, and I figure I'll see if I still have what it takes to run one. I haven't exactly been training.

Some recent photos:

This is a red-headed woodpecker. Please note its breathtaking gorgeousness.

Woodpeckers are insanely cute when they're not in trees. (Well, they're cute when they're on trees too.) Their toes and feet are adapted to clinging to trunks, so on the ground they look as if they're roller-skating on their bellies. This one actually came down for peanuts, and I took an obscene amount of pictures.

Interspecific competition! Long story short, the trap is fake, and we put it there to convince jays that it's safe to enter. Then when we want to trap them for real, we scatter peanuts inside as usual, they hop in to feed, and we shut the door.

Of course, the woodpecker was all like "whatever" and roller-skated inside to slurp up peanuts.

The bird interns took a morning off to go to a nearby air force range that includes a wildlife refuge. We got to see red-cockaded woodpeckers (a famously endangered species), a 10-foot-long alligator, and a pair of bald eagles. This is the male.

And here's the (blurry) female on the nest, a huge messy affair of sticks and Spanish moss.

Slightly eerie-looking cypress dome, also draped in Spanish moss and carpeted with ferns.

Yet another insanely cute bird, the burrowing owl. They have long legs and are more diurnal than most owl species. Also they have huge yellow eyes that give them a permanent stare. It was amusing to watch this one pop up and swivel its head to take in all the humans avidly watching it.

The burrowing owl's burrow, replete with insect carcasses at the entrance.

Here at the bird lab we have a fridge that is stocked with peanuts, yolk samples and beer. The freezer is packed with carcasses that will later be made into skins (stuffed, as in taxidermy, which is amazing to watch). This barn owl was the most recent arrival and now lies in peaceful repose. In a trash bag.

Black racer hanging out near the ATV shed.

Another ballsy scrub-jay flies up to the ATV.

And gobbles up the peanuts on my head. Who wouldn't love these guys?

Except the same bird shat on my cap and binoculars today. It's fallen out of my good graces for the week, but if it leads me to a nest, I'm giving it all the peanuts it wants.