Sunday, May 18, 2008

Migration Fix

It's been a nice week of birding with some old faces and some new ones. Great! My annual trip up through the hills of Lyme, Salem, and East Haddam has been great fun with very enthusiastic and patient patrons of Connecticut Audubon. The route yielded many of the expected such as Cerulean Warbler, Acadian Flycatcher, and dozens of Worm-eating Warblers, but it just seemed as though the views of those specialties as well as many others were better than usual. On Thursday the group had numerous close encounters with Yellow-throated Vireos and on Friday, our small group watched as a pair of White-eyed Vireos worked along a tangled hedge bordering a field; both days truly special in their own way. I was pleased to see that others were pleased.


On Thursday, my long-time birding buddy Joe Bear came along to help us out. Joe and I were participants on the original CT Audubon Texas scouting trip back in 1993 along with Jay Hand and Frank Mantlik. We still love to talk about that trip and how we hope to share the experience again before too long. Nice to spend some time with Joe. Joe and I will be co-leading the Block Island trip this fall, scheduled for the first weekend in October.

Sam, my son, just turned 10, so there were lots of celebratory activities including lazer tag, cake, pizza, and 15 energetic boys.