San Diego - Winter

Saturday

Our trip started out rather uniquely. We were sitting at our
gate at O'Hare when Kate mentioned that another passenger was not
having a good day. She and a female ticket agent were obviously
having a disagreement about something and very intense words were
exchanged. Suddenly, it got VERY tense and the passenger
abruptly took a poke at the ticket agent! The altercation was
over in an instant but the aftermath (cops, supervisors,
concerned looking pilots, etc.) provided entertainment for the
next 45 minutes or so. It was like watching an episode of
"COPS". Much better than "Airport CNN".

Anyway, our first bird, upon arrival in San Diego, much as we
tried to avoid it was a HOUSE SPARROW. Not an auspicious
beginning but as much as we tried to ignore them, we couldn't.
While we were waiting for the rental car shuttle, they were all
over the sidewalk nearby. What could we do?

It gets better. Our first stop that afternoon was at the San
Diego River Channel and Quivira Basin. We were pretty much
following the Lane's guide for the entire trip and this was the
first stop on the San Diego Loop. WOW, what an amazing place -
ducks and shorebirds abounded. You people that live on the
coasts hopefully realize how lucky you are. Around here, we
desperately look for a spot that even has one shorebird or duck,
let alone a reliable location where you just go out and scan. It
was wonderful. We could probably have ticked off 45 or more
birds just in this one spot. However, since we were hunting
lifers, we did not try to closely sort out the herons and ducks.
Some of the more interesting birds we saw included (Lifers are
indicated with an *) MARBLED GODWIT, *HEERMANN'S GULL (which we
both agreed wins the prettiest gull award), SANDERLING, WILLET,
OSPREY (which we were nervous about...Lane indicates this is an
uncommon bird) , RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, BUFFLEHEAD, AMERICAN
AVOCET, BLACK-NECKED STILT, *WESTERN GULL, *CALIFORNIA GULL,
FORSTER'S TERN, *BRANDT'S CORMORANT (roosting on a pier in the
middle of the yacht harbor), CINNAMON TEAL (what a beautiful
bird!), BROWN PELICAN, GADWALL, DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT, GREAT
EGRET, SNOWY EGRET, GREEN-WINGED TEAL, NORTHERN PINTAIL, AMERICAN
WIGEON, *CLARK'S GREBE, EARED GREBE, and CANVASBACK. WESTERN
MEADOWLARKS were calling and visible as well. This was our first
absolutely, 100% confident sighting of one. We "had" them in
Texas, based on song, but I've since read that this is not
absolute. But, I figured, within a stones throw of the Pacific
Ocean, we're safe.

There was lots of America's Cup activity going on as well. It
was interesting to see all of the investment in equipment and
buildings that these teams muster. It reminded me of the
Indianapolis 500, only less noisy.

You may have noticed - no loons and no brant. We heard this was
the best spot for them, but no luck. Well, maybe we just hit at
the wrong time of day...yea, sure.

Our next stop was the Sunset Cliffs. We stopped at the first
turnout, and looked over the railing. Suddenly a bird
appears...a *BLACK PHOEBE. Then, we look further along the rocks
and there is a *WANDERING TATTLER   We turned around and below
us, moving in the rocks was a *BLACK TURNSTONE. Shazam...3
lifers in 5 minutes. This is good. By this time, it was dusk
so, as we checked out some of the other turn-outs looking for
Pelagic Cormorant and Surfbird we got to enjoy a beautiful
sunset. 8 lifers the first day out. Not bad considering we
started at 2pm.

Sunday

Today, we made an error in strategy. Never organize your day,
around one or a couple of birds when you have shaky weather and
lots of lifers to get. While we had seen Clapper Rails in New
Jersey last September, we wanted to get a better look. From
everything we had heard, Tijuana NWR is the place to be at high
tide. And, we figured that we may have just missed the Brant and
loons yesterday. So we planned our day around checking for these
birds and being at Tijuana NWR at high tide (around 1pm).

So we headed back to the San Diego river in the morning. Still
lots of ducks, herons and shorebirds and we picked up *WESTERN
GREBE. We did see COMMON LOON in the Quivira Channel, but still
none of the other loons or Brant. Off to Point Loma for more
rocky shore birds. None of those, but we did get SAY'S PHOEBE by
the tidal pools.

Hmm...ok...running out of time till high tide. We sped off for
Tijuana NWR. I should note here that several wrong turns were
made en route. In fact, I don't think we got ANYWHERE for the
first 5 days without making a wrong turn somewhere. I'm usually
a very good navigator. Nevertheless, the road system in
California seems oriented around hills and mountains and
peninsulas and harbors and the associated tight spaces. This
flatlander had more than his share of problems figuring out
double left turn lanes and the chess-like forward thinking that
they require. "Let's see, I'm going to turn right in 6 blocks,
so I need to be in the right-hand left-turn-lane. Oh no...now
I'm in a right-turn-only lane but my turn is the SECOND turn.
And then, of course, there are highway dividers so that if you do
get stuck in that right-turn-only lane, you can't possibly turn
around until you hit Arizona. Arrgh."   With the advanced
driving skills I've acquired this week, I think I'm ready for
that trip to England.

We arrived at Tijuana NWR in plenty of time to miss the peak of
high tide. But no matter. It wasn't a very high high tide and
the rails would probably have been unseeable anyway. Tijuana NWR
preserves the estuary of the Tijuana River. It is mostly
mudflats, beach and marshy grass along with some upland areas.
We did pick up some additional birds: NORTHERN HARRIER, RUDDY
TURNSTONE, BLACK-SHOULDERED KITE, LONG-BILLED CURLEW and *ANNA'S
HUMMINGBIRD. Kate and I had our first bird identification
"disagreement" of the trip over this one. We discovered later
that these birds, in the right light, display a beautiful shade
of red. Not this time. No matter what angle we attempted (the
signs said stay on the trail so we were limited in our options)
this one just looked dark and Kate was convinced that it was a
Costa's Hummingbird. I voted for Anna's because of the
vocalization. The bird was so cooperative, just sitting on its
favorite bush and viewable with our spotting scope, that I hated
not to ID it. But we just couldn't. A few minutes later, as we
walked around the visitor center, it lit on another bush - this
time in the right light. What a beautiful bird. The red shows
up as if the bird was battery powered and the "red" switch was
randomly turned on and off. *BUSHTIT's were very active in the
bushes around the visitor center (hmm, do I see a connection,
namewise?).

Continuing to follow the Lane Guide, we headed down to the
Tijuana River valley and Monument Road, which parallels the
Mexican Border. This is primarily sod fields, horse ranches and
hillsides. It was also very weird. I think I counted, in the
half hour or so that we were down there, at least 10 Border
Patrol cars. And at least one guy on foot who was intently
interested in something (or someone) in the bushes. I was
concerned that our car, driving slowly and stopping periodically,
would attract some interest from them. However, I can only
assume that they're used to "those crazy birders." We also felt
kind of unwelcome. The local farmers had signs up with messages
like "Birds live while farmers die" and "Environmentalists are
killing farmers."   Evidently, there is a little disagreement
over a flood control project in the area. We were careful not to
even appear to be trespassing.

This area put things in perspective. We were surrounded by angry
farmers, persistent illegal immigration and equally persistent
police to stop the immigration. Kind of felt like we birding in
the middle of the Battle of the Bulge.

Unfortunately, because of the recent rains, the road to the
Border Field State Park appeared extremely muddy and marginally
impassable so we restrained ourselves. We did find a *CALIFORNIA
TOWHEE though.

Monday

Saturday and Sunday were pleasant, although Sunday looked pretty
threatening most of the day. And it rained during the night.
The TV weather guys kept saying that the rain was going to last
all week. In fact, the weather today looked like it was going to
be awful. Kate and I were looking at a pretty rotten vacation if
these guys were right. We started seriously considering the
option of driving to Arizona, since the weather there looked a
little more promising. We had arranged to meet Royce Riggan, a
Birder we "met" on CompuServe, tomorrow morning and we decided if
the weather was not going to begin looking better, we would
hightail it Tuesday afternoon.

We figured we'd start the morning with some passerine birding. We
were both tired of looking through a scope. Mission Gorge Dam
looked interesting and it was close. If the rains started, we
could come back and go to SeaWorld, a museum or something.
Mission Gorge was great. The area around the dam (built in
missionary times) is a riparian woods. We got there early, and
since the gate was closed, birded a trail that crosses the river
and goes into some fields. Later, we drove down to the dam area
and saw more of the riparian woodland. We saw COMMON
YELLOWTHROAT, *NUTTALL'S WOODPECKER, *BEWICK'S WREN, RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, SCRUB JAY and RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. This turned
out to be the only place we saw *LESSER GOLDFINCH. In fact, the
flock loitered around the parking lot just long enough for us to
get a look at them and then they were off for parts unknown. We
never saw lessers again. We saw *WESTERN BLUEBIRDS dining on
Mistletoe clumps in several trees.

We saw more Anna's Hummingbird's. They are feisty little
critters. I've read about how territorial they are and they sure
do leap at any opportunity to confront each other. We constantly
saw them chasing each other. It seemed like the only Anna's we
actually saw feeding was the female.

The rain held off, so we decided to go further afield, to Palomar
Mountain. On the way, we stopped several times. The first time,
while I was reading the map, Kate noticed a *HUTTON'S VIREO in
the tree right next to us. With a little pishing, we were able
to bring it into sight so I could see it too.

At our next stop, this time as per Lane Guide instructions, we
heard a thrasher singing. We could tell the direction he was
coming from and we were convinced we had the right tree, but we
just couldn't see him. Finally, I pulled the car up about 30
feet, and there he was, a *CALIFORNIA THRASHER.

Tourism note. We ate at a nice little restaurant in Rincon
Springs call "Peg Henry's." It was (surprise) a Mexican
restaurant and the food and people were very nice.

Our next rodeside stop brought us NORTHERN FLICKER (Red-shafted)
and DARK-EYED JUNCO (Oregon Race). Our first sighting of *ACORN
WOODPECKERS was as they were putting acorns into cavities on a
telephone pole. We subsequently saw many trees that were just
riddled with acorns. Neat.

We drove up the steep road to Palomar. (The squiggly line on the
map). We soon saw breathtaking views of the valley along with
weather that continued to threaten. Near the top of Palomar
mountain (about 6000 ft), we started seeing patches of snow on
the ground. Hmm, I thought we left that back in Chicago. We
drove out to the observatory, took a quick tour and got *MOUNTAIN
CHICKADEE in the parking lot. On a drive through Palomar
Mountain State Park, we got *BAND-TAILED PIGEON. This was the
source of the second "dispute" with my best birding buddy. She
was convinced that the Band-tailed Pigeon should look more like a
pigeon than the guys we were looking at. Finally, I won her
over, after several rather insistent discussions of field marks
and views through the scope. I'm glad nobody drove by and saw us
looking through a scope at "pigeons." We picked up *PLAIN
TITMOUSE near the county park campground.

Tuesday

We met fellow CIS'er (CompuServe), Royce Riggan, Jr., at Lake
Hodges. Amazingly, given what the weather guys were saying, it
was blue skies and mild winds, a beautiful day. Our first bird
was a flock of CEDAR WAXWINGS, followed by a flyover of CANADA
GEESE. Royce promised us a *CALIFORNIA GNATCATCHER and he came
through. We also saw BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERS as well (and noticed
the difference!).

At the lake itself, Royce pointed out birds that we didn't
expect...*CASSIN'S KINGBIRDS were hanging around the brush in the
middle of the lake. After Royce left (duty called) we continued
to hike around the lake and picked up *WRENTIT (not the world's
best look, but satisfactory), COOPER'S HAWK, SPOTTED SANDPIPER
and *RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW. And we got to see the Western
Grebes doing their courtship display.

By the time we finished at Lake Hodges, the weather was starting
to look chancy and we wanted a break. So off to SeaWorld where
we encountered rain, and lots of it. We still couldn't get away
from birding. Our first stop was at the penguin exhibit and we
added a variety of these comical fellows to our captive bird
list. We got to see a real penguin chase. One Gentoo penguin
evidently felt he had been wronged by another. A pursuit ensued
(more of a very urgent waddle). One keeper who was feeding at
the time interceded and grabbed the pursuer. She lifted him up,
all the while those feet just kept running, not realizing that
he, for once in his life, was flying. The pursuee, desperate to
escape, kept running (I really use that term advisedly) unaware
that he had been rescued. The whole exhibit was like watching a
Gary Larson cartoon.

We did add one countable bird, a BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON that
was lurking, with the Western and Heerman's gulls around the seal
exhibit. I know I must be a real birder. While everyone else
was enjoying the various interactive, feed-'em-some-fish
exhibits, I was enjoying the opportunity to see these gulls at
virtually arm's length. I even had a very interactive experience
with one of them. I was cajoled by the dolphins into buying them
some fish and I was ravaged by a thieving Western Gull on my way
from the fish stand.

Sure glad we brought the rain gear. I honestly would have
forgotten if fellow CIS'er Christine Rideout had not mentioned
it. After all, we were vacationing in California...it never
rains in California.

Wednesday

Today was pretty crummy, weather-wise. The rotten stuff
predicted finally came to pass. We woke up to a torrential
downpour and flash flood warnings along with major traffic
problems. We decided to cocoon up and watch OJ updates for a
while.

Along about 9:30am, we implemented rainy day plan B. We headed
to La Jolla to start a day of shore birding to see if we could
get those stupid loons and other birds (are we noticing a rising
frustration level?).

We were successful at La Jolla. The sky broke long enough for us
to walk, take pictures and bird along the ocean. We got great
looks at Brown Pelicans and Cormorants all the while scanning for
loons and Brant. We did get to see a DC Cormorant in breeding
plumage, including the "double crest." For whatever reason,
we've never seen that before. We were befriended by a couple of
local birders who, upon hearing we were looking for *SURFBIRD,
immediately pointed one out in the rocks where we had just looked
(duh). They were looking for Black Oystercatcher and mentioned
that further down, near the lifeguard station, was a good area.
Seals were a bonus attraction. Well, Kate is a mammal lover as
well, so we headed off in that direction.

As we were enjoying the seals, I suddenly saw a shorebird fly
past with a down-curved bill that was definitely shorter than the
Long-billed Curlew. It flew behind some rocks and we threw
caution to the wind and walked out on the overlook to get a
better look. There, in the last habitat we expected, was a
*WHIMBREL. It was wandering around on the rocks, not on a
mudflat and definitely no grass nearby.

On, again, to Mission Bay, in the rain. We stopped to check out
some ducks in the Pacific Passage and discovered another unusual
(for us) behavior. 50 or so American Coots feeding on the lawn
in the park. We've seen many a coot in the water, but never
simply grazing on dry land. We also managed to convince
ourselves that the blackbirds we were seeing were BREWER'S
BLACKBIRDS.

Searching for *SNOWY PLOVER, we scanned the sand bar near the
mouth of the San Diego river and turned up a couple of them.

We stopped for lunch in Mission Bay and spent more time there
than we planned. Neither of us wanted to leave our nice
comfortable table when it looked like the end of the world
outside. Eventually, the rain subsided long enough to get to the
car. At Oceanbeach park, we saw SEMIPALMATED PLOVER.

We stopped at the turnoff at Sunset Cliffs recommended in Henry
Child's book "Where Birders Go in Southern California" and, right
where he said, were 3 *PELAGIC CORMORANTS. The light wasn't
great and we waited until the birds deigned to show us their
faces, but we wound up with satisfactory looks. The clincher was
seeing the white patches coming in on the flanks. We saw another
goofy Whimbrel on the rocks.

We stopped again at the tidal pools at Point Loma and saw lots of
Cormorants flying to their evening roost, along with some
unidentified dark ducks, but nothing else.

We finished the day with a nice surprise. We were driving around
Shelter Island when Kate spotted some ducks in the harbor.
Binoculars revealed a small flock of SURF SCOTERS.

For a day that did not promise much initially, it turned out to
be pretty good. The weather still sucked though. Generally
today was like November birding in Chicago, just at a lower
latitude.

Thursday

Today, we left San Diego and headed toward the mountains. Our
plan was to check out the Laguna Mountains and then bird Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. As we headed into the mountains, it
got foggier and foggier. We stopped at the Meadow Information
Center as described in Lane and, in the fog, found *STELLER'S JAY
and *PYGMY NUTHATCH. In fact, there were boatloads of them. A
little hard to see because of the mist, but we occasionally got a
good look. It was VERY cold and windy. Now we're talking
January in Chicago weather. Explain to me again why we didn't
just go back to Florida or south Texas this winter?

As we headed higher up the mountain, what was patchy snow became
deep, slushy snow. I guess that they had at least 6 to 7 thick,
wet and sloppy inches at the top of the mountain during the
night. Except the main drag, nothing was plowed. None of the
campgrounds, picnic areas, nothing. Since neither of us had
brought our snow shoes, and since we did not have 4WD
transportation, we kept going, giving up, for now, the White-headed Woodpecker.
The snow cleared up as we went back down to lower altitudes (we
were at 6000 ft) and we felt the urge to get out of the car and
at least look at something. So we stopped at "Pioneer Mail"
trail. We got about 500 feet and, after noticing that the wind
chill was a mite wicked, decided that car-birding wasn't so bad.

We drove on to Santa Ysabel mission. Nice place but no birds.

We continued up Highway 79, in the stretch that supposedly, and I
do mean supposedly, had Mountain Bluebirds, Ferruginous Hawks and
Golden Eagles. Er, well, we did pick up *TRICOLORED BLACKBIRDS
and LARK SPARROWS. I think we may have also had a HARLAN'S HAWK
as well. Hey, the scenery was pretty.

We arrived at Borrego Springs and, as we were checking in a
GREATER ROADRUNNER walked past the entrance to the motel office.
Ok...things are certainly looking up.

It was now about 2:00pm and we headed over to the State Park
visitor center where we notched *COSTA'S HUMMINGBIRD onto our
binoculars. I love the way Lane's says you can get a certain
bird in a VC parking lot and, what do you know, there it is. Of
course, this does not ALWAYS work.

We hiked up Palm Canyon Trail. The bird activity was very light,
but it was a very nice walk. We DID pick up several VERDIN (cute
little buggers). We saw a *ROCK WREN, well, on a rock. And we
saw *WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS flying around the top of the canyon.
Unfortunately, the water in the stream was high, so we were not
able to hike far enough up the trail to check for dippers, but
we'll leave that to another time.

Tourist note: We stayed at the Palm Canyon Resort in Borrego
Springs. Nice place. We ate at the Italian restaurant on the
west side of town in the strip mall. Not memorable.

Friday

This was a pretty good day. Weather was dry, a little overcast
and cold, in the low 40's (that's balmy in Chicago, but it is
dang cold in southern California). We started early at the Yaqui
Well in Anza-Borrego Desert. A path leads to a small oasis. The
path was easy and just a 20 minute walk. On the way in, we
almost immediately picked up one of our major wanted birds,
*PHAINOPEPLA. Of course, it became the junk bird of the trip.
They were all over the place. We spotted the requisite Cactus
Wren along the trail. We found a Verdin building a nest. We met
a British couple and they pointed at one bird to ask me what it
was. I looked at it and said "Robin." So much for the vaunted
British birder.<<<GGG>>>

Truth be told, he said he wasn't the birder, his son was. They
just liked to wander around with binoculars.

We poked around a little, got a glimpse of what may have been the
Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, but never got a good enough look. We
heard these little, whining "burp" sounds coming from the base of
almost every shrub around the well (which really is nothing more
than a spring fed puddle).   We were almost convinced that these
were one of the mythical quail species that we had been looking
for all week. So we kept creeping around, trying to get a look.
Eventually, one flew out...Phainopepla. Urrggghh.

We spent almost an hour right by the well, standing against a
bush just to watch the activity. We got to watch Verdin, White-crowned Sparrows, Cal. Thrashers, RC Kinglets and other birds
going about their undisturbed pursuits. Our patience rewarded us
with a *GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW and nice looks at WHITE-WINGED
DOVES. We were glad we were there on a weekday. If it had been
the weekend, we would not have been able to have that much time
with no one else storming into the area.   One final look around
netted us a *SAGE THRASHER, another bird we had not hoped for.
Luckily I had glanced at him earlier that morning.

Fortuitously, we got lost heading back to the trail. This
necessitated backtracking to the well where we surprised the GC
Sparrow out in the open. This gave both of us a MUCH better look
than we had earlier.

The wonder of the day, and quite possibly the trip, occurred as
we were crunching down the trail, enjoying the afterglow of 3
lifers. Suddenly, we saw a flock of birds flush near the ground
in front of us. We were absorbed at the time studying what
turned out to be a Red-tailed Hawk. Then it hit us. Could those
have been...quail? Rigged for silent running, we crept closer to
the flock, getting off the trail to be quieter. Suddenly, it
seemed we were in the middle of a flock of *CALIFORNIA QUAIL.
Yes!   You need to understand. This was a bird that, from the
way the Lane guide goes on, we should have gotten in our bathtub.
Instead, it took us 7 days to get. Nevertheless, get it we did,
excellent looks!

Tourist note: There is a deli in a strip center in Borrego
Springs (The Mall) which was very good for lunch. Great
sandwiches, nice people and righteous cookies.

We backtracked our way to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and again,
did not see anything other than a TURKEY VULTURE on the legendary
stretch of Route 79. Lanes suggested a visit to Paso Picacho
Camp Ground for White-headed Woodpecker. Well, we got lots of
Acorn Woodpeckers, but no WH ones. We added RUFOUS-SIDED TOWHEE
to our trip lists.

Finally, we raced for the top of Mount Laguna, where we hoped
some of the snow from yesterday would have melted off by now.
Royce had suggested a particular place and Lane suggested a
couple of locations for WH Woodpeckers. Unfortunately, by the
time we got there, everybody had packed it in for the evening. A
big miss for the trip would be the WH Woodpecker.

This was a beautiful day. The weather was the best of any day so
far; the scenery was sublime; and we got 1 target bird, 2 really-wanted birds and a bonus bird. It's Miller time (or maybe Diet
Coke time).

Saturday

Our last day.

OK what are we missing? The obvious ones that we could still get
included M. Plover, A. Pipit, P. and RT Loons and Brant. Well,
we decided to call the San Diego hotline guy. I believe his name
is Don Hastings. We had heard from some friends back here that
he was very helpful. We asked if maybe there was a place that we
were missing. He was very nice and suggested a couple of
locations for Brant, the usual spot for M. Plover and Pipit (the
farms along the Tijuana River Valley) and could not help us with
the loons, which was kind of encouraging. He said HE had not
seen any so far. Hey, if the hotline guy hasn't seen em, then I
don't feel bad.

He suggested we start at Fiesta Island in Mission Bay. Now this
place is ugly. It looks like a landfill that they topped off
with some sand. But it was VERY good for shorebirds and ducks.
And it isn't mentioned in Lane or Child's book. We easily saw
close to 40 birds in just about an hour. We did pick up HORNED
GREBE, REDHEAD, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER and *BRANT! We saw a couple
off the west side of Fiesta Island, off Crown Point. Great spot.
I'll always remember it fondly.

Next stop...one last shot along the border. No success there but
we did find, as we were driving across a little bridge, a COMMON
MOORHEN, our last trip bird. Our final stop of the trip was at
South Bay where we managed to get our fill of Brant along with
the rest of the shorebirds and ducks we had seen all week. Our
last official bird was a Killdeer.

An uneventful return to Chicago. And no more fistfights at the
airport. Dang.

And now, what you have all been waiting for,

Commendations and Awards:

1. Most Worked for Bird - Brant

2. Most Desired Bird, Prior to Trip - California Quail

3. Most Worked For, Not Gotten - White-headed Woodpecker

4. Cutest Bird (also known as the Miss Congeniality Award) -
Verdin

5. Most Beautiful Bird (Lifer Class) - California Quail

5a. Most Beautiful Bird (Non-lifer Class) - Cinnamon Teal

5b. Most Beautiful Bird (Gull Class) - Heermann's Gull

6. Easiest to Find - Black Turnstone

7. Most Serendipitous - Hutton's Vireo

8. Most Unexpected Bird - Cassin's Kingbird

9. Most Instant Trash Bird - Phainopepla

10. Most "Oh, It's Another..." - Black Phoebe

11. Most Ubiquitous Neat Bird - Anna's Hummingbird

Drum roll please.....

12. Best Bird of the Trip - California Quail

Reflections.

For the sake of humor, I have made this trip sound like a lot of
ups and downs. Actually, there were hills and valleys, but that
was a function of the geography. Get it, hills and valleys...
But seriously, we enjoyed almost every minute of it. Ok, maybe
freezing our buns off watching the Shammu show wasn't one of the
high points. But we had a ravingly successful trip. I got 40
lifers and Kate got 42. We had 128 birds for the trip. And we
were warmer, most of the time, than we would have been in
Chicago. This, in the final analysis, is what was most
important.

Jim Frazier
Batavia, Illinois