Fun Times at Wildcare

It was the kind of event where a random person could call out "Look! There's a Northern Blue Stockinged Crested Bog Heron!" And everyone would turn and Ooooh in appreciative unison. I am not myself a birder (Birders, if you don't know, are a whole different species of human in themselves, and I mean that affectionately! A whole 'nother division of geekery). But, I did have Wild Animals and Natural Places are Cool attitude like everyone else.

While I have left my Bug Teaching job, I still show up for events. In this case, my Bug Boss at SaveNature.org, Norm Gershenz was the recipient of the 2010 Terwilliger Environmental Award at the Wildcare Center in San Rafael, Marin. SaveNature was much more than bringing bugs to schools - it is about raising funds to purchase (and thus conserving) areas of biologically rich ecosystems - and Norm has raised 3.9 Million over the many years, to do just that.

Wildcare most famously rehabilitates injured wildlife, but also teaches and advocates living with wildlife. For example, instead of calling an exterminator to take care of (ie, catch and kill) the bats that have nested in your attic, they will employ methods to encourage bats to leave on their own - by means of leaving predator poop in their presence to make the attic undesirable. Then they seal up the entry ways.

A nature painting - what a fantastic award gift! In the next photo, the youngest of Norm's nominees for this award. The birds - a hawk of some sort, and a brown pelican below. Brown Pelican I can remember! All taken with Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L which I in fact rented for photographing Ultimate this weekend, but happened to be useful for birds and award giving too. Wow this lens is awesome. Too bad it costs, well, haha! As much as the 5D camera body I have a crush on. I rented it at $35 for the weekend from ProCamera.