Today I volunteered at Hawk Ridge again. I got there after ten o'clock and stayed until four in the afternoon. At 10:30 we saw a guy with a trombone and 30 runners all wearing plaid shirts. Turns out this group is running an anti-Grandma's marathon. They are not against Grandma's marathon but they run in the opposite direction. I don't really get it because they aren't running on the same street but they all looked happy as they went Things got real busy between eleven and twelve. At 11:30 we got a call from the bird banders that they had a bird. Since I had only been down there once before a naturalist accompanied me. She showed me how to approach the banding station from the back. Once we are close we use the walkie talkie. Into the walkie talkie I said, "Volunteer here. Is this a good time to approach?" We were told to approach. I held the clipboard and wrote down the date, the species (SSHA stands for sharp shinned hawk), age (HY means hatch year), transporter (me), handler (name of the naturalist that will show the bird to the crowd and release it, time caught, and time released. The hawk has to be released within twenty seconds. We took the sharp shinned hawk back to the crowd. Lo and behold, another hawk had been caught and banded so I took the walkie talkie and the clipboard and hiked back to the banding station. There was an unusually long delay when I asked if I could approach. Finally I got the okay to come in. The bander said he would be right there. There in the nets was a red tailed hawk. Untangling that hawk was no easy task. When he got the hawk into a Folgers coffee can he was able to give me the details on the sharp shinned hawk (see top photo). I walked the hawk up the hill to the visitor area. I had my fingers at the end of the hawk's tail. At one point the hawk started moving around in the Pringle's can. I got scared and squealed a little but the hawk settled down for the rest of the trip. To people driving by I looked like a birder who likes to eat potato chips as she walked. Another naturalist went down to get the red tailed hawk but I got to watch it's release. All three birds were newly hatched. I looked at the list of birds banded this week and they were all hatched this year. Maybe newly hatched birds are more likely to be fooled into getting tangled in the mist nets. No more birds were banded before I left. I suspect they will band some owls tonight though. I had a fun day talked to the Hawk Ridge staff and the visitors. Today was a good day.