Day – 24 blog blog blog

After 24 days, I am finally taking the time to read about how to set up a blog.  I know it seems like I should have done so 25 days ago, but I didn’t.   One of the reasons is because I wanted to start keeping you informed of my where abouts,  but another truthful reason is when I started posting to a blog I started reading other people’s blogs.  I have found them to be endlessly fascinating.   The variety is indescribable.  The talent, incredible.  I wanted so badly to get out and see the world, but the insight, beauty, and inspiration at my finger tips in the blog world makes travel seem a little less urgent. Or could it be that I am lazy…

I did get out today (although I didn’t move the car). I took my camera along, but it was raining and so I didn’t take any pictures. That may seem surprising, both that I walked in the rain and that I didn’t take any photos, but it is true. Maybe knowing how the weather is keeping so many of you inside made me feel like I owed it to the world to take advantage of getting out.

We each bought a Bino-System, “A better way to carry your optics.” at Merritt Island the other day. It is kind of a harness type thing to carry your binoculars or cameras with. It works well, but I don’t think it was tested on women with ample chests. We had quite a laugh last night getting the thing adjusted. So far it has kept my hands free just to wipe the sweat out of my eyes.

So I am spending a rainy day learning how to customize the blog. I think you can see that I can use my photos in the header, but I don’t seem to have the pixels correct when cropping. It appears to be a slightly fuzzy marsh. It seems like “pages” won’t work with my theme, so I will have some more studying to do.

I have the new Michael Connelly book, so the changes may be slow coming.
Lee, it is a new Lincoln Laywer called “The Fifth Witness”.

Day – 23 My car hasn’t moved

My hostess mentioned today that my car hasn’t moved for a few days.  Well, maybe so, but check out the neighborhood…

Day – 22 Couch Birdwatching

Some amazingly beautiful birds come to the feeder here. The star today was this Painted Bunting and his wife.  I took the screen out and washed the window, but this shot was taken from the couch.

Day – 21- A Few Pretty Sightings

Day – 20 -In The Field, Ken and Lois Island

I have really enjoyed the birding festival, but I may have over done it. I admit, I am glad it is over. Today I had a morning class with Steve Ingrahms from Carl Zeiss Optics. He gave us his opinion on the best birding festivals in the U.S. They all sound so different and interesting. Of course, now I want to go to all of them.

There is one in Carrington, North Dakota called “Potholes & Prairies” in June that I want to add to my bucket list.

The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, Texas sounds fun. I met some people last year who had come from there. They say Texas has the most developed network of birding groups. Who knew? Maybe if we can stay out of Texas hospitals I’ll be able to check that out.

The Festival of Cranes near Sosorro New Mexico sounds like another good learning experience.

He thinks the biggest and possibly the best is near Toledo, Ohio in May. It makes sense that it is a good place to stop for birds migrating from the south, before they cross over The Great Lakes to Canada. I enjoy birding so much, it is hard to believe I didn’t know about this. I fear it is one of the many things my dad or mom mentioned over the years and I only half listened. Why do we do that? I think mom and dad would like the person I have become. Although, they did seem to like the flawed, unknowing person I used to be also. I miss them today. I wish I could have shared this festival with them.

After a quick stop at SubWay, we met a group out at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. This is am amazing place, but the whole set up seems odd to me. It was established in 1963 to provide a buffer zone for NASA. It is over 70,000 acres of brackish estuaries and marshes, plus that many more acres of coastal dunes, shoreline, scrub oak, pine forests and flat woods, palm and oak hammocks. The odd part is, on one hand it is a major refuge for wintering migratory birds. They have over 500 species of wildlife. The birding is amazing! It is set up so you can wander around on foot, on board walks, or see and photograph amazing things for miles without getting out of your car. Doesn’t it seem crazy, that they have the top secret, important Kennedy Space Center and encourage duck hunters, birdwatchers, and all sorts to mingle in the same area? I will admit that in the past Deb and I did wander into the Cape Canaveral part and we were ask to leave. We were lost, lost, lost. The first time the guard threw us out last year he was pretty nice about it, but the second time I felt like he was a little rude. We were obviously lost and TRYING to leave.

This year we listened to a long detailed talk about scopes and binoculars. It was interesting, but we both prefer to have a camera stuck to our eye. I was curious to see the equipment, but I fear Debbie was bored. After that we went out to the field with a very nice, knowledgeable ranger who had great equipment and experience. Once again, I think I enjoyed it more than Deb. I thought it was cool being able to use the nice scopes and binoculars, but Deb felt we had been captured and held captive. It was a long afternoon, and we had some pretty odd buddies on the bus. We did see many thing we would have never seen on our own. I saw over 32 kinds of birds. What to hear about them? I thought not.

We stopped at a fun drive-in on the way home.

Bird photos coming soon.

Ken and Lois, get the joke?

Day – 20 Bird Festivals Are Exhausting and I haven’t even left the classroom

This is day three of the Space Coast Birding and Wildlfe Festival.  I am exhausted!

Today’s classes were:

1. Profoundly Unscientific Bird Identification. This was that funny class I took Wednesday.   I  wanted Debbie to go and I accidentally signed me up again. I didn’t mind a bit and I laughed just as hard. Today I got the joke she made about having 40,000 birds on her life list.   Apparently, there are only 8 – 10 thousand species, and that in birding, as in fishing, people lie, lie, lie.

2. e-bird Classroom WS. This was a class about the e-bird web site. The site is really cool, but the class wasn’t all that helpful. We weren’t able to sign on to the internet at this college so we really couldn’t try things.  Brian Sullivan was there also, and he has more birding information in one finger than I could ever learn.  Amongst his other accomplishments he is also project manager at eBird and photographic editor for the “Birds Of North America Online”.   I look forward to having time to really peruse this site.

3 Indoor Photo WS: Taking Flight & Action with Kevin Karlson. This guy is an amazing photographer. He must have had a good life traveling and taking pictures. He has written at least one book also. I haven’t read it, but he is so knowledgeable I bet it’s good. He had many photographs in his presentation that were really amazing. Most of the people there were the kind who have $15,000 camera equipment so his presentation was pretty technical. I tried some of his tips after I heard him lecture last year and they didn’t work out so well for me but I enjoyed him all the same.

4. The last class today was Hummingbirds Of The World with James Currie. Mr. Currie hosts the popular TV show “Nikon’s Birding Adventures” and he was also on the show “Aerial Assassins” on National Geographic. The lecture didn’t start until 8:15 so it was another long day but worth every minute. He had footage of the most amazing hummingbirds you can imagine. Did you know that some hummingbird’s tongues are so long they have to roll them up to store them? Or that they are the only bird that can fly backwards? Or that some go into a torpor at night, almost like a bear in hibernation?

We did slip away for lunch at a great place in Titusville called “Dixie Crossroads”. The place was cute and lunch was good. They had beautiful murals all around the outside of the building and the artist deserves recognition, but I can’t remember his name.  They had a beautiful bathroom and unusual toilets. You pull this gold nob on the top to flush.

I had a chocolate turtle and chia tea for dinner again at the Caffe Chocolat. That might have not been a smart choice.

Oh, and did you know that there are belt-sander races? And, that it is a competitive sport? I don’t make this stuff up, folks.

Maggie After, Ellen