Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Back

Well, I got home at 10 pm on June 2. I've been busy catching up on sleep and homework, and helping out with a track meet for gym class, so haven't had time to go through the photos yet, but we had a great trip to North Carolina, with 169 species total (between Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and North Carolina (what happened to West Virginia you ask? We went through it in the dark both ways. Either that or I was asleep.), with 142 in North Carolina itself. I added 33 lifers on the trip, with #550 being Cerulean Warbler in Gratiot SGA in southern Michigan. Not a bad milestone in my mind! Best bird of the trip was by far the Black Rail that we saw for about half a second (that's about half a second longer than most people see it for!), although Swainson's Warbler, Fea's Petrel, and South Polar Skua were close competitors. Big thanks to Kirk for organizing the trip, to John R. and Tim S. for the company (and John's driving), John Fussell for agreeing to guide us around, and Brian Patteson and the spotters (Kate Sutherland, Steve Howell, Todd McGrath, Ned Brinkley, Kevin Metcalf) for running the boat trips so well. I'll put up a trip report on my website when I get a chance, maybe this weekend as my brother is out of town for track and I'll get the computer for enough time!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

CEWA was #550?? geez, you don't get down to the southeast much. That was like #230 for me.

I'm hoping to have my life list break 600 this year. I'm at 416 so I have a ways to go. Between BC, AZ and CA, I should be able to do it.

Are you doing any camps this year?

David Bell said...

Hey Chris,

Nope, that was my first time birding the southeast, although I've been to SC once before! If you've never birded around AZ or CA before then you should at least get close enough to break it in AK next year!

I'm not doing any camps this year unfortunately, and I'm not sure if I'll get the chance next year either. I should've done them when I was a bit younger...