The Island of Misfit Toys

 I don't know how many of you have seen the "Rudolf the red nosed reindeer" movie before but one of the scenes is where the Rudolf and his friends rescue all the misfit toys from the Island of Misfit Toys and they give them to the children, this gives the toys meaning and instills in them their reason for existing. None of the toys were friends before this and never had they ever imagined leaving their home and experienced the world and what it means to be alive. These toys are a lot like the group of us.

We started out as misfits who had yet to see all that the world had to offer and left as friends who had a new perspective about the world in which we live. I may not speak for the other birders on this trip but I know that I will never be the same after everything I saw and experienced here in Adak, Alaska. I expected to be happy when it was over but I'm not. I already miss the wild beauty and the everlasting ocean around the Aleutians.  It opened my eyes to all that the world is. Adak showed me how much humans have negatively affected our world, however it also showed me that given enough time nature will start to regrow the parts that we have destroyed.

I can honestly say that the girl who got on a plane a week ago heading for Adak is not the same girl who leaves it today. I am not ashamed to say I am crying a bit as I write this because I know that I am a better and more well-rounded person due to all that I have seen this week. I am proud of who I am now and slightly ashamed of who I was before. Someone asked me during this trip if it was still a big year under protest and that got me thinking. I realized that somewhere during my travels I have really started to love birding and seeing all these gorgeous places and meeting all these amazing people. If I had spent this year sitting at home watching Netflix I would never have changed. I would still be a shell of who I could be. I don't want to bore you all with my rambling, so I will tell you about the trip that changed my outlook on life.

I hadn't known what to expect when I entered the Pük-ük (our boat) and was impressed by the conservation of space. The boat fit all eleven of us easily with room to move around without having people invading your personal space all the time. However, being in suck close proximity with all these strangers allowed us to get to know each other and we all became friends. I had never met any of them before this trip but after this week I'm comfortable with all of them. I think it helped with my interpersonal communication skill too (I need all the help I can get with that) and helped me to be a little less introverted. That is part of what I meant before when I said I broke out of my shell.

Since we all slept, ate, breathed in the same space as one another we learned each other's goals for the trip. Mine was to see a whale, my dad's was to reach 700 birds, Chris wanted to see a short-tailed albatross and so on. I think we all got what we wanted out of the trip. I saw my whale, three actually. They were all orcas who were heralded by over a hundred birds of all kinds. I missed another whale sighting when I took a nap and it shows how much we tried to help each other because I awoke to multiple people yelling "LAUREN! WHALE!" Alas the whale was gone by the time I got to the deck but it was okay. I saw my orcas.

As for everyone else's goals for the trek, Chris got a spectacular look at his short-tailed albatross and he got to almost hold a Whisked auklet in his hand when it got trapped on the boat. I almost jumped out of my skin when I looked down and BOOM out of nowhere was a whiskered auklet! It was the cutest little bird I've ever seen and it was no more than three feet away. It was so close that my camera couldn't take a picture of it. I can't imagine anyone on the boat could ask for a better view of the little bird. At first only three of us were there and seeing the auklet but we didn't want the others to miss out on the once in a lifetime opportunity to get up front and personal with it and so Chris started yelling for people saying "WHISKERED AUKLET ON THE BOAT!!" No one heard us though and if they did the implication of what was being said was lost on them. It was a relief when (dad) Olaf opened the door to check on me and got Oxsanna, one of the crew, to come pick up the poor bird. Before she let it free, she kindly showed it to the birders in the upper deck.

I realized after she left with the bird that Blair, one of the other birders, had said he was going to take a break and was sleeping. Realizing that he was missing the chance to see the auklet I raced downstairs to where he was dead asleep and woke him. It is things like that and when people woke me up to see the whale that make a trip like this as satisfactory as it is. We all look out for each other and work together to see all the birds we can. Even though most birders keep score so to speak of how many birds they see it isn't a competition. We all are working together to see as many birds as possible and that is an amazing thing. Birding is an activity like none other and I am proud to be a part of it. So in conclusion this is no longer a "big year under protest" or at least it no longer is in the way I originally intended. My outlook on this year has forever changed and I am glad it has.

Here are some of my pictures from this week in and around Adak, Alaska.

Theses are Layson's albatrosses fighting two northern fulmars for a piece of fish.



This is a short-tailed shearwater

A short-tailed albatross

A whiskered auklet that got stranded on the boat

A very opinionated Stellar sea lion

Two adorable sea otters

I realize that I refrained from writing much about the actual trip but that was intentional. I do not believe that words could properly tell about the amazing animals and places and about the untouched beauty of a place like Adak. In my opinion this was an experience that can only be felt, not retold. I wish you all the best in your personal adventures and realizations.

Love,

L

P.S. I have now seen 446 birds!

I don't want to make this blog too much longer but I also want to add that my trip to Gamble was spectacular in its own way and an indisputably amazing trip. I saw whales that were practically right next to me, bought ivory from the natives, and saw some really rare and beautiful birds. I wouldn't trade my trip for the world. 

Peter Rabbit

School is an institution, I will let your imagination determine what kind of institution it is. That said I am sad that it is over and that I am no longer a sophomore. The most depressing part of school being over is that I am now getting less sleep and waking up earlier than I ever did during the last school year, birding is a very demanding hobby. Do not get me wrong I love seeing all the wildlife and traveling around the USA, but I am still a teenager and I need sleep. My dad is under the impression that sleep is for the dead and seeing as I am not dead I don’t need any. I disagree.

One would think that the last day of school is the time when you go to someone’s backyard and burn all your books and folders (maybe only south Dakotans do this) or when you stay up all night celebrating with friends and sleep in all the next day. I did neither, I technically did stay up late due to our late night flight but I doubt that counts and I don’t believe that 5 hours of sleep counts as “sleeping in”. However, I think it was worth it. I may have lost my summer of friends, sleep, fun, and laziness but I gained a summer of birds, family, new acquaintances, beauty, and adventure. I love all the places I have seen and all the new people I have met. I had no idea there was so many great people in this world. The group I went with to see the buff-collared nightjar are some of those great people.

 

There was five of us: Thor, Dan, Olaf, Laurens and Lauren (me), if you look closely at the last two names you will notice how similar they are. Laurens the guide is none other than my self-proclaimed namesake. Details such as me just meeting him do not matter. He was such a nice guy and he joked around with me and made fun of my dad with me (making fun of my dad is one of my favorite hobbies). My dad raved about his guiding skills and we all were very confident we would see our target birds. When I met Laurens I knew that the trip to see the nightjar would be fun regardless of how many birds we see. It was him that referred to the first rabbit we saw as Peter rabbit. Seeing rabbits, some scarier than others, was a trend for the next day.

The other two people in our group, besides my dad Olaf, were Thor who is an old friend of my dad and Dan who is an old friend of Thor’s. Both of them worked in the Canadian school system and I had a good discussion with them over the problems with American schools. This discussion helped to pass the two hours while we were crammed into the back Laurens’s car. It was a tight squeeze. I got another respite from the boredom when our way was blocked by some very cute cows.

 

When we were released from the cramped confines of the car I rushed to the side of the road to spit out my gum which, over the last couple hours, had turned into a disgusting starchy version of what it had once been. Let’s just say that I will not be chewing gum for a while (just thinking about it gives me shivers, so gross).

The gum incident was weird since in all the years I have been chewing gum I have never had anything like it happen before. It did put a slight damper on my mood but soon the hunt for a five-striped sparrow caused me to lose focus on anything else. We heard the bird for a while but alas we never saw it. However we did get to see the nightjar. We saw it almost immediately after we started looking. It was quite lucky. It flew off soon after we initially saw it and we found it again on the road near our cars or at least we found something resembling the nightjar. We spent a good piece of time standing there talking photos of what we later learned to be just a common poorwill, oops. Unlike most of the group I was not disappointed because I had needed that bird. So for me it was more of a two for one sale instead of the doppelganger my dad said it as. It was a cute little bird but since I had decided to not take my camera on this trip I didn’t get a photo.

The reason I had decided not to bring my camera is that my neck and back were aching from carrying it and my backpack up a hiking trail near our bed and breakfast the day before. I had learned my lesson about carrying a backpack and camera up a mountain and determined that when we went hiking this morning at Ramsey’s canyon I would forsake my backpack and just bring my camera. This was a good plan until after I had passed my parents by a good ten minutes and was very thirsty. I hope you understand how hard of a hike this was, my phone determined that it was five miles and 19 flights of stairs, it wasn’t easy. I ending up waiting for my parents on a scenic rise overlooking the forest and I realized something, I liked hiking. I really liked it. The burning muscles, crisp mountain air, beautiful views, and the joy at finally reaching our goal all played a part in my new found appreciation for mountain hiking.

 

It did help that we found our target bird much sooner than expected and we were able to more fully appreciate the hike since the pressure of finding a code five bird was gone. The bird was a tufted flycatcher and he was a very photogenic little bird.

 

He was by far the rarest bird of the day but he wasn’t the only bird. We saw a western tanager:

 

Some magnificent hummingbirds:

 

 

And a black chinned hummingbird:

 

We also saw some non-birds, including one my dad claims to be terrified of, although why a grown man would admit to being scared of this adorable albino bunny I will never know. It is so cute!

 

As you can see I have had a very successful trip thus far, I met a man who shares my name, found out I love hiking, I got to see a code five flycatcher, and I got to see my dad freak out over a bunny. It was a good day. So even though I am missing out on going to parties, hanging out at the lake, sleeping in and seeing my friends, I get to see all of these beautiful places and watch all these amazing creatures. I am having a once in a experience that will mean much more to me in the future than a high school party or sleeping in all day. I hope you all are enjoying your lives as much as I am.

 

Love,

 

L

 

 

Sweet sixteen

 I know it's been a while since my last post and, sadly, I don't have much to show for it. In a way I have been taking this month off in preparation for my big Alaska trip at the end of May. Since my dad has been gone on his birding trips I haven't had much ambition to do my own. I did drive around  and see some normal South Dakota birds but nothing truly fantastic. So far the big things that I've changed in my life is that I am 16. That was last week and and I got to see family and go to the mall America with my friends and to an art museum with my art class. Just seeing all the art at the museum inspired me to start sketching again which is another of the more notable changes this April.

I the beginning of April my dad had been driving around looking for a yellow headed blackbird. My mom had seen one already by then which bugged him. I hate to say this made me happy, but that would be lying which is wrong. I knew he would get one this summer and so I didn't feel overly bad for enjoying having a bird he didn’t have. He did recently see one of his own down in Texas after I saw mine here in Milbank. I was just driving around with my grandparents looking for an antique store and there was a yellow headed blackbird! I saw two more when I was driving home from my birthday party in the cities. I also saw a Baltimore oriole. Sadly my camera is getting cleaned, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of them.

Before seeing those birds I was inspired to start doing some art of my own at home due to the art trip we did last Thursday. Something about seeing all of these artists paintings and sculptures immortalized forever in the museum inspired me to start drawing on my own. I'm not a big painter, but I love to sketch, and so I have been more and more lately. I started trying to break out of comfort zone by drawing portraits. Last night I attempted to draw my cat who was sitting next to me. She actually held still for about an hour before she got scared by the movie I was watching and left. I think it turned out pretty good for my second cat sketch.

Besides that I've mostly been taking it easy and trying to finish everything before school ends on May 20th. After that I'm in Alaska with my dad till June 10th. While I am excited to go the part of me that loves Netflix, wifi, milk, good food and running water is not as excited as the rest of me. It doesn't help that I'm missing a good piece of my summer. But I know once I get there and see the ocean and all the wild life I will forget about he rest of the world and fall in love with the new places and animals. (As long as I don't get too sea sick that is). I have only been to Alaska once and it wasn't anywhere near where we will be going and i will get to see entirely new birds and other animals while I'm there which will be really amazing. 

My camera will be newly cleaned and so I promise some good pictures when I get back in an area where I can post them. However that is still a good while away and I am not quite sure if I'll go on any trips before then. If not you will have to make due with this and hope my dad takes me chasing some rare bird with him soon. 

Thank you for reading and may this blog find you in good health and happiness!

L

On top of the world

"You know you are a real birder if you've ever faked your own death to attract vultures."

I know that many of you read my father's blog (badweaherbigyear) and if you have you might remember him pretending to be a disabled camper in order to see a grassquit. While I am not sure how ethical this is or how similar it is in comparison to faking one's own death but it shows his devotion to this big year.

I am not nearly as hardcore as my dad is, although he will say he is taking it easy, and according to this quote I may not even be a true birder. While that may be true, I am enjoying seeing new birds and amazing places. One such place is Colorado. I had never been to Colorado before this weekend and was amazed by all the mountains. My dad, however, was on a mission. He had gotten to the airport earlier than us and the second we were in his sight he walked away. I found it to be quite rude that we didn't even get a hello or a hug since it had been at least a week since we had last seen him. He had plans for us and greetings had to wait.

When we finally caught up to my dad at the rental car, a jeep, we packed our stuff and drove (for hours). When we at last reached Silverthorn and started driving around the houses like creepers, looking for birds. I was only slightly concerned about someone calling the cops and helped my dad to find bird feeders around the neighborhood. The neighborhood was located on the side of a mountain overlooking a green valley. It was quite eerie when it started snowing and I saw the contrast between the green valley and the white snow. In this snow we saw a grey-crowned rosy-finch.

After seeing all we could at Silverthorn, we left (thankfully not in a cop car) and headed to Gunnison. At this point we had been driving since we left the airport and had yet to get out of the car. So you can imagine my boredom. It got better when we reached the road around which we might find a Gunnison sage-grouse. We looked until dark and all I found was my spirit cow, and yes I said spirit cow. I am sure you have heard of a spirit animal, so the idea of a spirit cow should not be a foreign concept. 

I created the idea of a spirit cow in order to distract myself from the post-plane exhaustion and to annoy my dad. I have to admit it was a lot of fun.

The next day we headed back to Gunnison and after much searching we got a bit of good luck when the grouse we were looking for flew over.

Our trip passes in a haze of driving with only the occasional stop every few hours. We eventually stopped at Colorado National Monument and I saw a juniper titmouse.

While in that area we also saw a herd of  mule deer.

 So far besides the driving it had been an enjoyable and very scenic trip. The part that made me wish for more happened at the top of a mountain in the snow. We were there to see a ptarmigan of some sort which lived in the high altitude. We hiked up a hill and I stood for a moment in the wind. I was on top of the world! However, as I looked out across the snow I saw hundreds of people snowboarding and skiing down the mountain. This caused a craving for my snowboard or even my skis. I missed them so badly as I watched all these other daredevils gliding down the white mountain. My love for the snow and all sports related to it was much greater than my love for birds and even though my dad yelled at me and tried to guilt me for not searching for his ptarmigan, I still sat there on the mountain watching and taking pictures of the boarders and skiers.

If only it was winter, I have told my dad and he reluctantly agreed that after his big year is over it will be his turn to be the follower on our trips. We decided that a ski/snowboard trip in Colorado would be an amazing adventure next year. I hope you all accomplish your dreams for the next year or two. 

Love,

L

Phoneless

This latest trip was to Tucson, Arizona. We stayed in Miller Canyon which was very beautiful. The one downside of the canyon was that it had no cell reception, but I adjusted and after the first day used my phone just a camera. However this turned out badly since I grew used to using my phone less, I did not notice later when it went missing. The location of my phone is still unknown, but besides that, the trip was one of the most vacation like of any birding trips I have been on this year.

I got to go on my first hawk watch this weekend. A hawk watch is a strange pastime where people sit in a clearing waiting for a hawk to fly by. I noticed that many people also brought their dogs with them which provided a great source of non hawk related entertainment.

This is Joey the dog, she was known by almost everyone at the hawk watch and had the unique skill of being able to jump out from the dog park. I had to laugh as she ran around saying hi to everyone. In addition to seeing Joey the jumping dog I got to see a common black hawk.

The best part of that day was convincing my dad to let us go shopping. We needed presents for my grandmother and great grandmother's birthdays. My dad gave us fifteen minutes to pick something out, but we able to evade my dad for thirty. It was fun and we found some really nice presents. After that we went to see some humming birds and I got three new birds to add to my list.

Broad billed hummingbirds

Broad tailed hummingbird

Violet crowned hummingbird

My parents practically had to drag me away from taking pictures of all of the hummingbirds. 

It was a lot of fun and I was quite happy on the ride back to our cabin. Later that night we went hiking to see the elusive spotted owls. We saw them and got a great view of the sunset over the canyon.

One of the people who owned the cabin we were staying at was kind enough to show me a ringed tailed cat. 

The next day we went hiking in the desert and saw a curved billed thrasher and a black tailed gnatcatcher.

This blog was mainly just pictures since not much of interest happened this weekend besides losing my phone (potentially while hiking in the desert). I hope you all have a great week

L

Snow on the beach

Snow on the beach, it is something that is difficult to picture. When I first saw it as we were walking along the water towards the car, I could not figure out what it was. At first I thought it was ash? Then I looked closer and it was white. I never for a second thought it was snow. My dad informed me that it was in fact snow when he noticed that I had stopped following him. Snow on a beach? It is such a strange concept.

Our trip did not start at a beach or in the snow. That happened later. It started on a flooded dirt road somewhere in North Carolina. Our very pretty but equally impractical Dodge charger had no chance of going into the water, so we hiked. My dad didn’t want to carry his giant camera all the way down the road and so he suggested we just take mine, it was very sneaky. Guess who ended up carrying the camera the entire two miles to the tree where a red-cockaded woodpecker was? Me. I did this in my snake boots which are great at defending against snakes and going through water but….they are terrible to walk in.

We saw the bird but I regret getting out of the car to hike those two miles. My ankles hurt so badly afterwards and I had to strongly encourage myself to get out of the car when we reached a beach area. It was quite pretty and there were many new birds for me.

It was neat seeing all of these new birds and walking around in the sand, so much so that i ignored my foot pain and enjoyed being on the beach. It was almost erie walking through the dunes and looking out apon the ocean. We reached the point of the beach and continued back along the rocks. It was beautiful and when it started snowing the area became almost surreal. We came across a lone black scoter who seemed very at home in the snowy waters.

On the walk back to the car I picked up shells and fossils. I planned on giving them to my mom as a kind of apology for making her be alone on Valentines day. I felt bad that we left her and also bought her some presents from a tourist shop. Technically my dad paid for them with my guidance. 

We had originally come down here in order to go on a pelagic but it was cancelled and pushed back a day. We still went on Sunday but the weather was bad and I got seasick. It was a very miserable trip for me since I didn't feel good and had cold feet (literally). I did get to see a hammerhead shark, a couple of sea turtles, dolphins, and a great skua! Which helped to make up for the long day in the boat. That is all for now, have a great day!

L

Unexpected Death

I was informed of an unexpected death while on my way to see the ivory gull at Duluth, Minnesota. The gull had died. This was quite a surprise to me as people had been feeding the gull and I'm sure they would throw themselves in the way of a gyrfalcon before they would let it fly off with the rare ivory gull, but alas the gull is no more. This put a damper on my trip this last weekend but it all worked out in the end. I did not get to see the gull but I saw nearly every other bird that we could have seen in the Minnesota area. All except the ruffed grouse, but I will see that another time.

This trip started like all birding trips in my family, very early. We drove and drove and after hours we reached Aggasiz national wildlife refuge. After passing by an abandoned house we came across a flock of sharp-tailed grouse. To be honest I could not see them until they were pointed out to me. I was so sleepy I could barely see a hand in front of my face but the idea of new birds helped to wake me up. We were pleasantly surprised when one of the sharp-tailed grouse turned out to be a prairie chicken. This is a picture of a sharp-tailed grouse.

We were so pumped up by the two-for-one that we went to find a northern hawk owl.  About a mile from the Canadian border there it was, sitting on the top of a tree in clear view.

We drove around in the hopes of finding a great grey owl, but all we got was stuck. Yes stuck, I had to get out and push which was a new experience for me. My dad, ever the gentleman, didn't leave the car. He did let us go out to eat for lunch at subway since we had seen all the target birds for the day. If any of you know my dad you will realize how rarely he goes out to eat, he is a hardcore birder, he does not waste good birding time on food.

After lunch we went through Warroad, and while there we came across a flock of ghost bohemian waxwings. I call them a ghost group because like an aberration they vanished into thin air. We drove all over Warroad and never caught sight of them again. It did not faze me as I had already seen them and at that point I was carsick and sleepy. I woke up a little bit when we came across a small group of pine grosbeaks.

Sax-Zim Bog: We were on the lookout for a great grey owl and after our easy find with the hawk owl we were sure we'd find it. Things didn't go quite as planned. We searched the places where owls had been found previously but we found no trace of them. I was disappointed. After a few hours of driving we gave up and went to Marie Lou's feeders to pick up an evening grosbeak. We found them. We had to make fun of some other birders, however, as they were scaring the grosbeaks.

I was rejuvenated somewhat by seeing the evening grosbeak and so we headed to another feeder to try and see the boreal chickadee. There was already three cars there when we arrived and by the time we left there were about eight. I had fun watching my dad talk about his birding prowess, but the cold got to me and I had to go hide in the car with my dog for a while. The boreal chickadee did not show right away but we had no lack of birds to look at since the grey jays were being very photogenic. The boreal chickadee finally showed after a half hour and was received by a large group of birders armed with their various types of cameras, one man even had two.

We resumed our search for the owl after that but to no avail. It was midafternoon by the time we gave up and started searching for a black backed woodpecker. My butt was numb and we had been in that car for over five hours at that point, I was stir crazy. So I was happy to be able to get out of the car each time we tried to call a black backed woodpecker. We used my mom's beat pill to call them but received no response. It was after one of these calls that we heard a thump on the side of the car, I asked my dad what it was and he responded that Bridget must have bumped something. Bridget is our dog. We continued driving and were planning on meeting up with one of my dad's friends when we decided to stop and call for the woodpecker again. It was then that we realized what the thump had been, it had been the speaker. On our drive back to where we had heard the thump, I couldn't help imagining that everyone we had passed might have picked up the speaker or god forbid run over it, we were lucky though, the bright red speaker was still there and my mom had one less reason to murder us when we got home.

The day was long and exhausting. I had given up on seeing any new birds and I will admit I started day dreaming while looking for them. I was not allowed to read or listen to music so I was insanely bored and my dad and I continuously fought over the radio. I was shocked and pleased when my dad's friend sent us a picture of a great grey owl. She had seen it in the opposite side of the bog however, so we had nearly twenty minutes of driving to get there. My dad put the pedal to the metal as we sped down the main road, going 100 mph at times. We made the twenty minute drive in closer to ten, it was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. When we were within sight of his friend's car we saw a great grey owl.

We were overjoyed and could not be more thankful to Julie, my dad's friend. We offered to buy her dinner and drove to a diner in Cotton, MN. It was a pleasant evening and being outside of the car after driving all day was a welcome change. I stole my dad's food while he was talking to Julie and almost fell asleep after eating. We still had an hour drive to our hotel after that though.

The next day started earlier still as we were meeting a Facebook friend of my dad's named JG. He was going to help us find the blacked backed woodpecker. He seemed to be a nice guy and helped us out when our dog spilled my dad's coffee all over my seat. We offered to give him the dog in exchange for his help, but...he refused. It was not long after that when I caught a glimpse of something in the woods and saw the woodpecker. We all shared a group hug as this was my Dad's 400th bird for 2016 and my 237th bird. JG seemed overjoyed to be with us for this monumental occasion and was even more excited than we were about it.

We were all quite happy as we drove off to Superior to see a snowy owl. The snowy owl hadn't gotten the memo that we were looking for it, however, so we were unable to find it. We also could not find the gyrfalcon which may or may not have eaten the ivory gull. 

I was very hungry by then and strong armed my dad into abandoning the search for a snowy. My dad showed me the place where he claims to have proposed to my mom on the way to one of his favorite restaurants. I say he claimed because my mom insists that where he showed me was not in fact where he proposed. That raises the question if he did not propose to my mom there then who was he proposing to? 

During lunch I had a struggle with the wait staff, they were so prompt and quick that I could not get more than half of my overly strong tea down before they refilled it. Which may not be a bad thing but I had had enough tea and wanted to finish the cup. I never could. The food was good though but my dinner companion didn't allow for much conversation, he was writing his own blog at the time. Once I had finished my food I snuck off to look in the tourist shops. I loved looking at all of the cool glass works in one of the shops and I was able to hide out there for a half hour before my dad found me. He had wrongly assumed I'd be in the candy shop, I had hardly given that shop a glance. 

We headed back to Superior to try again at finding the snowy owl. It was by a stroke of luck that a gyrfalcon was sitting on a pole off in the distance. It was too far for me to get a picture, but I was so relieved that we had found it. If only the darned snowy would show up then we could leave! It was after this that my dad started getting superstitious and since we had listened to exes and ohs right before we had seen the great grey owl, he decided we needed to listen to it again to find the snowy. I was forced to buy it off ITunes and we listened to it again and again changing the words as we sang. It did not work right away, JG had rejoined us with his daughter and a few hours had gone past when we listened to it a final time before going and picking my mom up from the airport. This time when we turned around to re-drive the same road there was a snowy owl sitting on the post we had been driving past for hours. The song worked! I give total credit for the bird showing up to Elle King. Her song is my dad's good luck song and maybe mine as well.

We went to pick up my mom after seeing every bird on our list of needed birds. Life was good and we got celebratory frosties from Wendy's. I had mine with my dad's french fries, if you haven't eaten milkshakes and french fries than you are missing out. My dad forgave me for stealing his fries since my salad had BBQ sauce on it, do not ask why Wendy's decided to ruin my salad I can only speculate. One of the things I came up with is that the workers got high one night and decided that BBQ sauce went well on salads-it doesn't. Besides the nasty salad and car sickness the trip went good. I finished the day with a bird count of 243. It was a good trip and while I was sad I had not been able to see the ivory gull, I was happy to have had a good weekend of birding. 

With love,

L