International Bird Rescue 45th Anniversary

Gail and I spent the day last Saturday in San Pedro, home of one of the two International Bird Rescue facilities in California.  There was an open house to celebrate their 45th year anniversary.  We spent most of the day there taking a tour, listening to speakers, and even bumping into a couple of our friends who work at the Northern California facility where Gail and I met about 7 years ago.  I wished I had taken more and better pictures.

 This was early in the day.  Later on, there was a pretty big crowd.

We are checking out the schedule of events (photo from IBR website).

 Thee were even three food trucks!

The outside art on the main building - Brown Pelicans, of course.

 The pelican aviary, just like the one we had up north, only much cleaner appearing.

 A real high light of the day was listening to Joel Sartore speak and present his photos.  He is a photographer whose work is often on Sunday Morning, and he has had 35 features in National Geographic.  He was very inspirational and funny.  His current work is Photo Ark, a compilation of portraits of animals near extinction.

 Next door to IBR is the Marine Mammal Center, which is rehabbing seals, sea lions, and elephant seals.  Most were found emaciated.  Others had injuries from sharks, and two were blind.

 Joel Sartore got to release this Brown Pelican (picture courtesy of IBR Facebook).  I worked with this individual pelican 6 years ago at which time he was banded and released in the Bay Area.  He turned up recently in the L.A. area with fishing line injuries.  Now he's free again!

 This is the view from the "dirty bird room" into the clinic.

The pools for pelagic birds are in the background. Later in the day we took a bird photography class from Bill Steinkamp where I got a few new tips.

We're sure glad we made the drive up.  It was great to see Cheryl Reynolds,  Dr. Becky Duerr, and Michelle Belizzi from Suisun.