Not Much Going On

This is so weird, normally I am getting busy to go out birding or netting a few dragonflies but so far I had urgent need to do either. My life is filled with taking care of the yard, doing some projects around the house, running the kids to their sport events, making sure the Catholic Church I take care of is clean and ready to go each weekend. It's just plain wierd that I no longer make time to go birding!

Do not get me wrong, I love what I do and grateful that I can control my work hours plus take care of the kids and the house. It's just lately my thoughts are not on birds. I am though spending a lot of time working on the Sax Zim Winter Bird Festival but that is about how close to birding I been doing lately.

I think as soon as spetember nears my birding urge will swell up and I will get out to Park Pt. and do some lake scanning.

Last week my son's little league team I coach (Blue Jays) went to the championship game! We defeated the first place team that was loaded with talent and I beat them with only 8 players on my roster! I think we would of won the little league championship if this new rule that the little league created about pitch counts and number of days off after pitching and ect. We played our hearts out on Monday and I used my best pitchers for that game and my best pitchers according to the rules had to take a day off and we played the next day for the championship. Oh well.

I purchased a pulling harness last winter for our Siberian Husky - Bear to pull the kids around on the sled. Well this summer I been hooking up the harness and having Bear pull my bike around the block. So far he can pull me around for about a mile than he tires out. After the run I spray him down with cold water and give him lots of water to drink. Most times he wanders over to the yard sprinkler and stands over the sprinkler and lets the shooting sprays of water spray him.

Well its soccer time and soon Nighthawks will be migrating down the shore and its fun counting nighthawks as I sit on my lawn chair and watch the kids play. I like summer but I am huge fan of fall season. I like the comfy feel of family gathering at night, the smell of rotting leaves and sights of jaegers chasing gulls. My favorite get together is Halloween and greeting the kids at the door. I usually slip in the "Peanuts Halloween" DVD in and remember the days when I was a kid. Yep I love the fall season.

My paper route is FUN! I have no problem getting up at 2:30am and get the papers, turn the radio to 56.0am radio and listen to pretty good sports show. I see so much wildlife at night in the country. I seen on one night 8 Red Foxes and 10 skunks! I am still waiting to see a Bobcat or something else running across the road. Le Contes Sparrows are still singing at night on territory! This winter should be interesting or even this fall as owls move around at night.

Other than that no much is new up here in Duluth. Hopefully ( I said this last time) I will get some photos in here. I have a great photo of some begging young chipping sparrows in the nest.

Take care

Blogging Rambles

I been ignoring my blog for some time and it's because I am running around getting my daughter to her soccer tournament, getting my son to his all-star little league games and of course chores around the house.

The Sax Zim Birding Festival is set for February 15-17th 2008 and we are very busy getting to event up and going. So stay tune for more information in the near future.

The other news is that Minnesota has a new birder in town and his name is Dr. Richard Wood. I never met the guy but he has a long history of being booted off several state listservs like MDOsprey and is rumored to be booted off Texas, New York and was moderated on the Utah state listserv.

It seems Doc is hell bent on attacking state record committees, picking on local birding experts, and at times criticizing birders as being unkind. I googled his name and was led to several links where he had some major run ins with several birders from the above states. He is real close as I write this to being moderated on the MOU-Net listserv so he doesn't start threads to promote ugly debates. So Doc, welcome to Minnesota!

I am so glad we got this new air conditioning put in last month. Duluth is getting pounded by constant 90 degree temps and high dew points. Right now the temp in the house is 69 degrees!

As many of you people know I am a part-time janitor at our local Catholic Church and also a stay at home dad. I also guide a lot in the winter months to out state birders and also guide for OBServ Tours. Well I got a new job to bring in more money to our family -- are ya ready for this one? I have a paper route! Damn right I am a PAPER BOY! I get up at 2:45am and get home at 4:30am every day! My route is a car route in the Fond Du Lac area and Wrenshall (Carlton Co.) I see a ton of wildlife (deer, raccoons, skunks, red fox, black bear, rabbits and porcupine) and so far I seen one unidentified owl which might of been a Great Horned Owl. I do not even have ot get out of the car to deliver these papers, all I do is stick a paper in a mailbox out the window. I get paid a whopping $1000 a month for roughly a 1 1/2 hours per day. Not to bad plus I get to do everything else! The last time I had a paper route was when I was in the 5th grade!

I am in the middle of reading the last installment of Harry Potter series. I got addicted to these books when my daughter brought "Prisoner of Azkaban" home and I read it in one week. Since then I became a Harry Potter fan. We saw the movie last Saturday and we loved the movie.

Birds? Hell its late July and ol Mike doesn't pick up his binocs until late August. So there is no chat about birds but the next post will be about our gardens. Man they look damn good!

Well other than that things are rather slow and this blog is just rambles of stuff.

Later

SOLD!

Last Friday at 4:30pm Monica comes into the computer room and tells me that Dobson Communication has been sold to AT&T!! We sat there and looked at each other and wonder what the future will unfold for us. Monica is the Midwest Regional Marketing Director for Dobson. Will At&T keep her? We talked and talked about scenarios, what to do, what we need to now and ect.. very stressing.

Our yard next year will be part of the secret garden tour in western half of Duluth. We were asked by the organizer as news came to her about our gardens, pond, stream and ect.. we have through our yard. I guess after all the shoveling, hauling and planting, we get rewarded by this invitation. I am very happy.

I still have yet pick up my binoculars or my dragonfly net. I am down to one last small yard project and I am done for the summer!

Monica called me today and informs me there is small sliver of hope of her staying on with AT&T after the deal is finalized. This sale takes at least a 9 months to compete so at least she has a job till then. Monica also informs me that AT&T has marketing positions in Oregon. Oregon?! Ok I can see myself living in Oregon!

Hopefully next posting I will know about the our future here in Duluth or in Minnesota. For now I am getting the church hall ready for the huge funeral we will be having this Thursday. For those that in Duluth a man was shot in the Central Hillside neighborhood. (murders in Duluth is not a every day happening here) but the who was killed his parents go to our church. In fact last Sunday the parents were in church and it was only 5 hours before they came to church they learned thier son was murdered. I know I would be to devasted if my son was murdered at a house party to even think about going to church. As I was leaving church my priest pulled me aside to tell me to clean up the hall the next two days to prepare for a huge funeral. As I went outside the parents were talking with calmness about the events to thier close friends. Again how can they hold themselves with such composure? The sad thing about the whole murder is that this man just got home from serving a year and half in Iraq! Then again nothing good ever comes from being out till 3:40am and being at a house party in Central Hillside Duluth. So far no motives were published in the paper and I am sure the news on why he shot the man will be known to us Duluthians.

The church hall is covered in concrete/contruction dust from the new left being installed in our church along with new restrooms. I got the stripping machine working and after the final mop, I can still wipe white dust on my hands! UGH! By tomorrow things should be clean and ready for Thursday's reception.

I cannot believe its already July 4th this Wednesday. Baseball is coming to hault pretty soon (3 more games and then the playoffs begin), summer soccer is winding down and soon fall will be amongst us.

Later!

Crank Calls From Minnesota?

It has been a while since we chatted about Ivory-billed Woodpeckers here in my blog and for the record I could give a rat ass about them!! I heard both sides of the arguements, I read countless blogs saying this and that about the sightings, the search parties, Cornell and ect.. Its the same-o-same-o redundant chatter coming in from both sides of the fence. So I pretty much stop getting involved with these buggar eating nerds and thier view points on what they have to say about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas or in Florida.

BUT I came across this blog called "Rational Skeptic" on Blogger.com. The guy who owns the blog is Tim Jackson. Tim comes off as a reasonable guy who doesn't like Tom Nelson (owner of "Ivory-billed Skeptic" who resides at North Oaks, Minnesota) Tom has many MANY people from all over the planet who despises him but you gotta give credit to Tommy, that despite that he carries a large target on his back he keeps plowing on with his blog. Well Tim Jackson announced the other day he is folding up his blog because he is getting CRANK phone calls at his residence about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker & his blog.

Here is what Tim had to say:

" I don't like getting prank calls but I can deal with it. But my cousin Tim Jackson who lives in Georgia is also listed in the phonebook and he's getting prank calls from Minnesota too because the pranker doesn't know who is who. So there are probably other Tim Jackson's getting pranked in Georgia, all because of my blog. Maybe every single Tim Jackson listed in the state has had this happen. What's funny is I'm a skeptic, but they are probably fellow skeptics pranking me instead of people who think the Ivroy-billed lives on.I hate to give in to prank calls but I don't want innocent people like my cousin and other Tim Jacksons to have to deal with this"

WHOA from Minnesota? Here is some food for thought..... On Tim's blog he allowed comments criticizing Tom Nelson to pieces. Tom must of gotten pissed off and threaten Tim in some way because Tim posted on his blog a compromise that Tim will remove the comments if Tom apologized for criticism towards researchers, Ivory-billed Woodpecker searh teams and ect.. he allows on his blog. Then Tim posted again a few days alater that he will not allow anymore comments attacking Tom Nelson. Then the crank phone calls came soon after that even though the comments were left on Tim's blog about T. Nelson.

OK lets travel back some .. Tom Nelson and Laura Erickson were tossing punches at each other over the Ivory-billed Woodpecker sighting in Arkanas a few years ago. Laura got off the subject on her blog and began to criticize President George Bush Jr. on how he handle the hurricane relief in New Orleans. Tom got all pissed off at Laura on what she had to say about the relief/Pres. Bush and called her employers to complain that Laura had no right to say what she had to say about the President Bush because the blog is sponsored by Binoculars.com. So Tom called and complained TWICE! He wanted Laura's employers to remove her from her position or wanted her to get discipline for her remarks.

Now Tom has words with Tim Jackson and now Tim is getting prank phone calls from Minnesota -- can you see a pattern here? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm makes ya wonder doesn't it?

Other than birding is rather slow in NE Minnesota because I am not birding. I am birded out from the trip and need to step back for awhile and recharge my batteries. Since I been back my son's Little League baseball team is on the winning track. I missed three games because of the Manitoba trip and my co-coach lost those three games but when I got back in town we won the last three games but took a lost last night to a tough team. (3-6) Good news is that my son made the All-Star Team. 33 kids tried out and they only selected 15 of them. Proud of Ben of course! Becca scored a goal in soccer while I was gone and her team looks real good. They only lost once and I assume they will be a contender in her district.

I am pump as hell that we are finally getting air conditioning this weekend! We are also getting a new furnace and hot water heater. After Saturday the temps can soar to 90 degrees every day! Bring it on 60+ dew points!

I have to post some photos of the gardens in our yard, they look awesome and really healthy! We are going to have a crop of grapes this year! Birds are nesting in our yard and I found a few active nests by Robins, Tree Swallows, House Wrens, Chipping Sparrows, Song Sparrow, I hear Red-eye Vireos in our backyard every day, Veery is calling most nights and our Catbird is nesting in the dogwoods like they do every year.

Well that's about that --

Later

More Churchill

One of the most beautiful areas of Churchill is the bog habitat along Twin Lakes Road. The white stuff in the above photo is reindeer moss. I will post a closer up photo of reindeer moss below. This photo was taken along Cook Street which runs off Twin Lakes Road. Right near this area I found Bohemian Waxwings, White-winged Crossbills, Boreal Chickadees, Northern three-toed Woodpeckers and Gray Jays. We missed out on Spruce Grouse but made up for the miss by finding a Boreal Owl nest!.

Here is a closer look of reindeer moss and by the way there are no reindeer in Churchill. The only thing close to a reindeer is a caribu or possibly a moose. We did not see either mammal while we were up there. The moss is sensitive on being walked on and in the Churchill guide book the author asked birders to be careful and watch where you walk.

When I was in SE Arizona I was amazed by the mountains and birds but Churchill is my kind of place. It may not have a huge variety of birds like Arizona but man-o-man for some reason I fell in love with the place!

Well here is the photo of one of the young Boreal Owl owlets. This poor owl was being harassed by robins, white-crowned sparrows, gray-cheeked thrush and other birds. The other owlets were safe inside the nest hole but this pwl decided to roam out and see the world. I have no idea if Boreal Owls are doing ok in Canada but the area where I found the nest is a location that had nesting owls in the past. My group my very excited by this find and we had smiles all day long --- well maybe not all day long because the Ross's Gull was yet to be relocated by birders and my group really wanted to see one. The pressure of being a bird guide!

This structure is not located in Churchill but instead you can see this structure at Neepswa, Manitoba. It's the world's largest martin house! All this rectangles on the sides of the structure are martin houses and yes there are martins to be found nesting in those martin houses. In fact while reading the "Find Birds in Southern Manitoba" bird guide they make claim for lots of north american records or concentrations. For example Douglas Marsh says "largest concentration of Yellow Rails in North America" We heard two!. Then at the Delta Marsh the birders wrote in the guide book that the woodland areas along the beach hold the largest concentrations of yellow warblers and least Flycatchers in North America. I thought all these north american records were some what amusing to read!

Yep they had Hawk Owls in Churchill too! These birds are nesting some where along the Goose Creek Road. The residents gave the pair names and they are easily to be found in the morning and late evening. When we found them they were calling to each other. The male was actually singing in the woods. If you never heard a Northern Hawk Owl sing, its a great song!

The photo is blurry but then again I am not great at taking photos. I just try to do my best and that is all. Our owl list was quite good for the trip! We saw Long-eared Owl, Short-eared Owl, Great Gray, Hawk Owl and Boreal Owl. I was quite please with the list of owls found for the trip!

Again I hope there are enough people signed up for next year!

This photo was taken along the coast road which follows Hudson Bay as you head east of town. This is the area where Polar Bears are normally found in the fall thru winter months. Way out are some seals and yes I tried to get photos but they were so far out resting on the floating on the ice.

Of course when I saw the seals I began to walk to the beach and then as I got to the beach area, my little pea brain informed me that morning a Polar Bear was seen just east of town and I am east of town, Polar Bears eat seals and I am walking towards Polar Bear's entrees! So I decided to walk back to the SUV and take photos from the road. Stupid me!

Right in the heart of Churchill is this sculpture of a Polar Bear and a large rock cairn. (spelling on cairn) The Inuits have a spiritual belief in the rock cairns and you see them all over the place.

Most of the time up their the skies were cloudy except the last day when the skies opened up and day's temp rocketed to 55 degrees! As I left my mind and thoughts were looking further north to places like Baker's Lake or Baffin Island. You can fly to Baker's Lake on Calm Air, which happens to be the best damn airlines in the world! Yuo get free food and beverages on the flights!! No peanuts but food like sandwiches, deserts and candy! Hell I was offered all sorts of stuff but did I get the same treatment on Northwest Airlines? Hell NO! I love Calm Air!

Well anyway that is part of my photos and from time to time I will be posting a few more to share. YES I know my blog has tamed down since I got back and where are my rants and swearing? Well nothing has yet to piss me off and even though there are some subjects that I like to bitch about like why birders are lousy at giving exact directions on where they found thier birds or why some birders who are over 700 species still cannot ID the simplest birds in the field? Also some other subjects that interest me like why are there so many woman birding blogs and very few men birding blogs? and also why do these woman all comment on the same blogs and act like some sort of posse? Its a like a huge TV "The View" with the same people chatting about this and that about birds. Strange.

Another day and as always -- Later all!

Back From Churchill

I am back! I was out guiding for 10 days leading a Manitoba/Churchill trip for OBServ Tours. The people were great and even though I never birded Manitoba before I basically kicked ass and saw a lot of good birds and shown a few lifers to the participants who were along with me.

It took about 2 weeks of creating maps, searching locations, asking questions, emailing birders and memorizing places in guide books to pull this trip off.




Started the trip in SW Manitoba and saw a lot of grassland birds. We drove from Brandon and headed to the southwestern corner of the providence to search for Baird's Sparrows, Chestnut-collared Longspurs and Spraque's Pipit. We found all three species and as a bonus we found lots of Sharp-tailed Grouse and two Black-headed Grosbeaks!

This photo of a Marbled Godwit was my first attempt to photo through my binoculars. I was amazed how much clearer the photo is compared to using my Kowa scope.

Marbled Godwits and Willets were all over the place in the SW corner as were Upland Sanpipers. What is so beautiful about Manitoba's prairies are how each slough or pot hole were filled with birds! Lots of ducks and shorebirds were to be found as were raptors.



We found lots of Wilson's Phalaropes and again this photo is shooting out of binoculars. It seem that almost any road in this part of the country had pot holes filled with birds. Lots of Black Tern & Forester's Terns, nesting waterfowl of all kinds, Yellow-headed Blackbirds and shorebirds.

The people were very nice in the small prairie towns and were very friendly as they drove by. Most the people waved at you or even stopped to see what you were looking at. Also when you od stopped at these potholes shooting photos of the birds was a lot of fun. There were so many that you were bound to get a good photo.

Highlights of the birds we found in SW Manitoba prairie country:

-Sharp-tailed Grouse
-Yellow Rails, Sora and Virginis Rails at Douglas Marsh
-Marbled Godwit, Willets, Wilson Phalaropes and Upalnd Sandpipers
-Ferrugenous Hawks
-Swainson's Hawks
-LeConte's Sparrows
-Baird's Sparrows
-Grasshopper Sparrows
-Chestnut-collared Longspurs
-Spraques's Pipits
-Sedge Wrens & Marsh Wrens
-Black-headed Grosbeaks
* a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher at Pierson's cemetary

We then headed up to Riding Mt. National Park and spent three days there searching for birds.

Highlights:
-Great Gray Owl
-Long-eared Owl
-Conn. Warbler
-Philadelphia Vireo
-17 species of warblers
-Northern-three toed Woodpecker
-Boreal Chickadees
-Gray Jays
-(2) Black-billed Cuckoos!!


This Great Gray Owl was the tamest owl I ever encountered. I spotted the owl and one of the participant yelled "Great Gray Owl" the same time I did. Anyway the owl just perched on the wooden fence and allowed the birders to approach the bird as close as 30 feet and click photos of it.

As you can see the owl is very sleepy and lethargic and was not interested in us birders as we approached the owl. I brought along my Sony video camera and video the owl as it sat there in the morning sun.

The birders were very excited to see this owl and many commented that this was best looks of this owl they ever had. I was very pleased in seeing this owl and sharing it with participants.

The funny thing as we did not find this owl in the park but instead south of the park along a gravel road SE of the park.

Man if I was in my mid twenties I would of moved to Churchill and got my visa and spend a few years there! This is my kind of place! I made friends with so many residents. I was offered a job at a restaurant, I was offered a job to come up in the fall ( the last day before I left a guy name Don Lunde stopped me to offer me this opportunity) and help with the polar bear tours.

I met some really good people and really love the Inuits and their customs. I listen to them give live performances and heard thier songs one evening as I sat on the ice and looked over the Hudson Bay and beyond. In a way I found my second home!


I missed out on seeing a Polar Bear by a few hours on our first day. It was seen on the eastside of town and the police shot cannon like pops near the bear to scare it away from the limits of town.

The first two days were cloudy and windy with lots of fog in the early am hours. The last day and a half was sunny and nice. The temps during the day varied some where around 35 degree to 45 degrees. Our last day the temps climb to 55 degrees! I took so many photos and I haven't edited them all yet. I will be posting photos of my trip in the next blog postings.

Here are the highlights of our Churchill trip:
-Pacific and Red-throated Loons
-Common Eiders (LIFER)
-Three Scoter species in breeding plumages!
-Long-tailed Ducks in breeding plumage!
-Red Phalaropes
-Red-necked Phalaropes
-Hudsonian Godwits
-Red Knot
-Willow Ptarmigan (photo above) (LIFER)
-Mew Gull (LIFER)
-Iceland Gull
-Glaucous Gull
-Little Gulls
-Parasitic Jaegers
-Hawk Owls (2)
**I found a BOREAL OWL nest with 4 owlets!! I took photos and a video of one of the young. I kept the sighting to ourselves as there were to many groups up there. I shared the location to one of the Manitoba birders through a email for their records. a HUGE find!
-Smith Longspurs
-Lapland Longspurs
-Snow Buntings
-Northern Shrike
-Bohemian Waxwings
-Hoary Redpolls

I took a lof of video on the trip and a lot of photos. I even have a video of the Beluga whales heading back to the bay during the early approaches of the low tide in the Churchill River. I will have to find a way to get them on my website.

Mammals found on the trip:
-Mule Deer
-White-tail Deer
-Moose (photos and video)
-Richardson Ground Squirrels (Oak Hammock Marsh they approach you for food!)
-Thirteen line Ground Squirrels
-Eastern Cottontail Rabbits
-Snowshoe Rabbits
-Artic Hares
-Coyote
-Black Bear
-Short-tailed Weasel
-Harp Seal
-Harbor Seal
-Ringed Seal
-Skunk
-Red Fox

Anyway the trip was very VERY succesful and I am proud that I was able to pull this trip off for not ever birded in these locations before and no scouting. I got help by Kim Eckert prior to going and other than that a lot of studying and creating maps or in other words doing the homework really paid off!

I will share more very soon.

Later

Tape Recordings and Other Stuff.

Well it's not the best photo of a Red-headed Woodpecker but it's something new to share on this blog.

WOW lots of news to share and some thoughts and YES I am going to spill some thoughts out before I leave for Manitoba/Churchill this Thursday. I will be back on June 17th, just in time to resume my Little League coaching responsibilities at 7:00pm Sunday night.

Well the big news this week was the unbelievable "fall out" on Park Point last Thursday. Twenty four species of warblers were seen and I saw 18 species that day. Most if not all the activity was concentrated between the bath house/playground and the entry stone wall of Park Point. I missed seeing a Yellow-billed Cuckoo and a Orchard Oriole (county bird) but hey I made up for it by seeing a Common Moorhen at Indian Pt. campground! I had to go to work and missed most of the mid-day to afternoon sightings.

So that was Thursday and then Yellow-breasted Chats were reported at Black Dog Lake and all hell broke loose over birding ethics. There are some birders who are oppose of using tape recorders when it came to these YB Chats and then there are some who use the tape recorder/IPod/CD player to get the YB Chats out into view. I agree with Deanne Endrizzi ( old girlfriend and proud to say she is still a dear friend of mind) that 3 birders each using a tape recorder is pretty dumb to lure out a YB Chat. All you need is one birder playing a tape recorder and I am sure the YB Chat would of popped out for them.

Then some how some birders began to post that those who are using tape recorders are nothing but BIRD LISTERS! Yes those people who are worse than card carrying Al Queda members! You might of met those bird listers who walk around and boast how high their lists is and act so high and mighty! They brag about all the places they birded, all the birds they added to their lists, all the gas they spent to view all these birds and ect.. Than you have the other extreme group of birders who read "Birder's Digest" or "Birds and Bloom" You know these birders and their bird vests with patches all over them, the LL Beem clothing gear (khaki and green color combinations), Binocular harness wrapped around thier bodies, and those goofy birding hats! These folks are not into lists but are into the hobby because of the vibe they get in viewing birds. Its sort of a spiritual thing. These are the birding types that probably bought all the Stan Tiekala's books or saw all the Stokes TV shows. You know the type -- the weenies of the birding world!

Also someone said on the MOU listserv that "birders should not wear white shirts in the field because it will scare the birds off" Hmm I own probably 5-6 mock turtle neck long sleeve shirts and I found a ton of birds in the field while wearing them. So much for that theory -- myth busted!

The truth to the matter of using bird recordings is that there is NOT one DAMN piece of scientific evidence that using tape recorders/Ipod or anything to play bird songs in the field is doing any harm to the birds before or during the nesting period!! The only problem humans cause to birds before or during nesting period is approaching and disturbing the bird's nest over and over and scaring the adults off the nest but the main problem birds face is habitat loss -- NOT bird recordings! I ask anyone who comes to this blog and reads this -- To find one scientific article/paper published in some journal that proves using a tape recorder on birds is harmful to them!

Bird ethics are just requests from bird organizations or people who ask birders to follow these guidelines. One of the items on bird ethics is tape recording birds. Most ethics allow taping but they say not to tape sensitive species (rare, endangered or threaten). They probably say something to effect on not using them to much or not all at during the nesting period. During my search for evidence I read a article on Robert Ridgley who is a top birder in the tropics and while using a tape recorder he heard something new calling from the bush. He then recorded the calls and played them back and he found a new species of antbird!

Yes we need guidelines to keep birders of all types (listers and weenies) on the same page and yes I broken some of the guidelines. In fact I know a lot of birders who broke the guidelines to view a bird. Shit happens and were all human and prone in making bad decisions.

I am done with this topic and talking about weenies, what with these Stan Tiekala books? You can find these little books in some gas stations of all places! I do not understand why people bought them but they did. I know one thing if I ever give a talk to a group of children in school (youth mentorship talk) and they ask what kind of bird guide should I buy? Well the answer is easy "Peterson Bird Guide". A couple of weeks ago I was guiding some birders from Spain & Italy and one of the guys had the Stanley T. book "Birds of Minnesota" and I took the little book and I told him to get his money back and buy the Sibley or National Geo. He laughed and he agreed the book is lame and was sorry he bought it. So I took the book and tossed it in the back of my SUV. You see I cannot PR a book that is not good nor informative. I can't wait to see these Minnesota Audubon regional bird guide books. I am going to have a field day on them.

I am heading to Winnipeg and I am excited about the trip. I hope to get photos of Baird's Sparrow, Pacific Loons and breeding shorebirds. Hell I hope to get a lot of good photos and I am also bringing my Sony digitial video recorder. When I get back I'll try to put them in this blog. I been pouring over maps (Kim Eckert gave me a lot of information) and making maps. So I am ready to go.

Well that is it for now all you weenies!