Blog reader Denise came to The Raptor Center for a tour today and gave a very generous donation--Thanks! That feeds a merlin for a month and a half! And what did she get for her generosity?
A photo with the sooty shearwater head! Whoo hoo, a round of applause for Denise. Thank you for being such a good sport. Hey, Denise, if you were totally grossed out by it blame WildBird on the Fly, it was her idea.
Hey, remember the art car post from the other day? Well, when I went to KARE 11 on Monday, this car was in the lot. This isn't just art, this is the flirtologist's car. She was on the same show I was that day. I'm going to be on her radio show on August 26 when she's broadcasting live at the Great Minnesota Get Together. You can grab some fried cheese curds (or my personal favorite: scotch egg on a stick) and come watch or listen online. She flirts, I bird...should be interesting. Maybe some single birders can learn some tricks.
Speaking of interesting get togethers, Birderblog and I are meeting on Sunday. She's gonna take me to Grand Marais to see the slaty-backed gull. Two mouthy bloggers, one super rare bird...whose post will come out victorious (I watch too much Iron Chef--and I mean the original not that iron chef america crap). She has already blogged about it so I'm sure this is old hat to her. She wants to know if I'm bringing Cinnamon. I'm not sure. It's about a three hour drive from Duluth to Grand Marais...that's an awful lot of disapproval in a tiny car to inflict on the uninitiated. I don't know if I want to expose poor little Photon to that.
And I just have to say how much Non Birding Bill rocks. Last night was one of his few nights off from rehearsals and he spent it reloading photos that were lost in the wipeout a two weeks ago. Here is one that I was missing from 2oo2 that I was so happy to get back:
We were hawk trapping and an adult sharp-shinned hawk was chasing a Nashville warbler and both ended up in the nets. After we got them out, we were posing them at the same time and it was just too much for the sharpie, she made a quick jerk to try and nail the Nashville. She didn't get it though. The Nashville was released quickly to give it a chance to hide while we banded the sharpie. Don't worry about the sharpie, it was fat and sassy and would get another bird at another time without any problem.
Ah, that just makes me with it were Autumn right now! I am so ready for hawk migration...it's like my Christmas.