a mother Costa’s Hummingbird on her nest at Villa del Faro in Baja California Sur. The rim of the nest is covered in her and/or her offspring’s droppings!

In the citizen science department of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Celebrate Urban Birds program (CUBs) holds several competitions a year revolving around a certain idea of bird celebration. We have covered the Funky Nests in Funky Places competition several times,  and back when I worked for CUBs as a Cornell undergraduate student I wrote worked behind the scenes on the competition.

Now the contest is back, and ends on June 30th!

Check out the CUBs website to learn more about the photo contest, but remember that you can also submit a video, original artwork, poetry, a short story, or original audio to perhaps win a prize.