Caltech Birding - Publicity

Caltech News backpage, vol 41, no. 2, 2007: "AN AVIARY BY ANY OTHER NAME? A sizeable number of birds call the Caltech campus their home. Several more species stop over for the winter, some choose to nest here during the spring, and others merely visit for the day or two . . . or three. Our back-page collage showcases a selection of the Institute's feathered friends, starting (top, left) with four raven fledglings who, from the shelter of a window niche above the president's office in Parsons-Gates, are doing their best to proclaim their putative descent from the dinosaurs. Continuing clockwise, we find a red-crowned parrot; a black-throated gray warbler; a Nuttall's woodpecker; a female peacock, or peahen; a mourning dove; an orange-crowned warbler; an Anna's hummingbird; a house sparrow; and in the center, somewhat larger than life (that dinosaur dynamic again), a house finch. Every Tuesday at noon, an ad hoc group of campus birdwatchers scours the campus for birds along a route first devised in 1986 by Alan Cummings, PhD '73, a member of the professional staff in physics, and Ernie Franzgrote, MS '57, a longtime member of JPL's technical staff. Cummings continues to lead the group today, and, as befits a Caltech graduate, he has seen to it that the data from each walk-nearly 900 to date-are recorded and analyzed. To find out more, including how to participate in the weekly walks (logistics permitting), check out the Caltech Birding website at http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/. ", 05/2007
(Thanks to Doug Cummings for poster design)