Happy 2020! I can’t believe that the California Raptor Center is now just 2 years away from turning 50 years old! Stay tuned as we are planning a huge celebration full of festivities!

Speaking of festivities, one of our annual public events is coming up very soon. Biodiversity Museum Day , a campus event will be held again this year on Saturday, Feb. 15 at UC Davis. The CRC will be open that day between 9-1 and our ambassador birds will be on the glove with our volunteers sharing some great information on the species and how we affect their environment.

I want to give a huge shout-out to our educational programs coordinators–Jo Cowen and Lis Fleming for on-site presentations and Julie Cotton for off-site presentations. Lis is in the spotlight this newsletter discussing her many years of volunteer service in education here at the CRC. We are so grateful to her for all she’s done to create presentations for learners of all ages. We are also very grateful and fortunate for a recent small foundation grant  to help support Julie’s time in our education programs this year!

Our rehabilitation programs got off to a swift start in January–our first bird in rehabilitation this year was an American Kestrel that I personally got to release last week! Read about that bird here . We thought then it was only fitting to spotlight Apollo, our male American Kestrel, who spends his days sunning at the top of his tree! The American Kestrel Partnership of the Peregrine Fund is an excellent resource to learn more about these amazing small falcons, and of course you can read more about Apollo on our website as well.