On May 24, Tom and Anne Daniel and Paul and Wallis Mayo were in Tallahassee to attend the Wade Tract Birding Hike.  The Wade Tract is one of the best remaining examples of old-growth longleaf pine/wiregrass forests left in the US.  Jim Cox, noted ornithologist with Tall Timbers Research Station provided commentary and showed the hikers a red cockaded woodpecker colony.  He extracted three baby woodpeckers from a nest 45 feet high, brought them down and banded them, and then returned them to their nest.

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Old-growth longleaf pine	Bachman's sparrow nest	The forest floor	Butterfly and flowers
Hiking in the forest	Notice the size of these two pines	Jim almost at the woodpecker cavity	Ready to band
Three birds after banding	View of the forest from 45 feet up the ladder	View of the hikers from 45 feet up the ladder	Tom climbs the ladder