A California Towhee for the ages

Our colleagues down the Audubon Starr Ranch Sanctuary in Orange County last weekend held their last bird banding of the season, and they found some cool stuff. Most interesting was a California Towhee first banded on May 25th, 2002 – making it 12 years old. Starr Ranch’s Jennifer Wilcox is pictured above, carefully examining the bird (photo by Tom Sheffield) The oldest California Towhee on record was 12 years and 10 months. This one might have been older, or it might have been younger – we’ll never know. Anyway, she seemed to be in excellent health and our people sent her on her way. More great birds below:

Another very cool bird they found was a very cool-looking California Thrasher (OK, all California Thrashers are cool looking) and a female Pacific Slope Flycatcher. We also were visited by some hummingbirds, a Black-chinned and two Allen’s.