Olaf Danielson's Blog, page 29

1/7/2015 Birding the bathrooms across the ABA region

Big Year Days 6-7

Big Year Total:  235
Coded birds:  9
Miles driven.  3740
Miles walked 22

I am sitting here at the Phoenix Airport writing this blog waiting 6 hours for a 1 am departure.  I sat here thing of the last 2 days of intense birding.

I went birding with the King of Green Valley, Arizona, which is not his real title.  Laurens Halsey is a local birding guru, guide, philosopher, and all around good guy...and now outhouse expert.  His real nickname is the desert harrier.  With me in tow, we birded around every outhouse, crapper, john, porta potty, latrine, and comfort station we could find.

Stories about birders in the bathroom are legendary, The great Macklin Smith (largest lifelist) has a story with rare bird on Attu coming out of the outhouse.  The is the story in the Big Year movie about seeing a rufous capped warbler on a toilet brush in El Paso, etc.  Well, with that in mind, we decided to see how many rare birds we could see from outhouses.  If I could get the outhouse in the photo, I got extra credit.

We started off at Catalina SP NE of Tucson, it wasn't long before I got a perfect ten...


Rufous-backed Robin a code 3 bird, (left)  next to a northern flicker with the outhouse in the back.  I think the correct word is comfort station here though.

here is a better view of my life bird #718 for me and the 7th coded rarity of the year so far.  I had to flush it, bad pun, into a tree for a more natural photo


we also saw a gray flycatcher:


photogenic pyroloxia


I tallied the ever present house finch, even and we moved on, of course none of the common birds would have anything to do with the outhouse except that flicker.  We had more bathrooms to see.

The rules at Fort Huachuca have changed, and the visitor gate has changed.  After passing my background check we headed into the fort and into the rain.  We found the bathroom and immediately knew, a rare bird was near.


You got to love the inhalation hazzard warning, those ladies at gaseous beings!

Hiding in a hole in tree after I saw the bastard sneaking in the thickest underbrush like a mouse was the code five, Sinaloa wren, the same bird I saw in 2013 without a tail, it had grown back but this time even in the rain, I got a good shot of him.



Two bathrooms, two coded birds, we looked for the Rufous capped warbler but to be honest, there really wasn't a good bathroom to bird anywhere, and we dipped out, so it was then time to run up the score a bit on the bird count.
Hammond Flycatcher

We found a great bird with a Long-eared owl at a secret spot in the middle of nowhere, and it the thickest forest anybody would want to venture in.  This bird was a number 1 worry for me and it was now off the board.
We stumbled on a leucistic Red-tailed hake on a power pole in good light, it was a cool find.


Day 2 south of Tucson involved the trek up Florida Canyon.  The trial is pretty good until the tank and then by the dam, it is a couple steps short of bushwacking and after 1/2 of a mile of thorns etc.  my arms looked like I was having a fight with a cat.  We hiked up prior to a pending storm and pretty much all was silent until we reached as far as we could go...would we find the rufous capped warbler?

Then we went down, then up again and ID'd some sparrows and towhees, lots of sparrows and towhees, then we went down again.  I ran into a follower of mine, a man named Roger from Michigan and juts as we were about to exchange cards, harrier eared Halsey, heard it.

We went down and then up and finally out came a pair of the little rascals.  I even got a pair of good photos of the great code three bird!  It is one of the cutest birds, but in reality, they seem more wren-like than warblers



Wow, I finally got it photographed well.

Then we walked down and found another gorgeous bird...painted redstart but unable to get a good photo we went on.

Here at Florida Canyon, the outhouse is missing some parts, like pretty much the whole outhouse.  So maybe this is a .1 bathroom, 2.1 bathrooms, 3 coded birds.
Very nearby, however, we came across another great outhouse bird, we saw an elegant trogon feeding on the ground very bear the trail head and the toilet seat, they are stunning birds



It is hard to take a good photo sitting on the potty.  Now due to the fact it was a severely damaged outhouse and a code 2 bird, Laurens only gave me one point for this bird.  We did dip out on the black capped gnatcatchers but I will get that in May no concern there.

Up Madera Canyon we found some showy birds

Acorn Woodpecker





Arizona  woodpecker

Bridled Titmouse

Hepatic Tanager














The weather was getting bad so we bailed on the Mountain


snow was coming in.  I bailed and birded to Phoenix, I had plans to bail on Arizona, and fly north to the cold

Laurens was thinking I should name my blog "Birding the Outhouses Big Year"  I will take it under advisement, but I added 47 birds for the two days around Tucson--some of them in the rain.  I was now a week into this and had 235 species and with Sandy Komito posting 360 by February 6th, I had to push it up.  I had to even quicken the pace.  I am nowhere near high enough but all I can do is a coded bird a day and one was teed up for my near where I lived in 1989, Canal Park, Duluth.  It was a red-eye for me and then double back to British Columbia, I would be an exhausting day but one I needed

All I can say about the king...
All Hail Halsey!

Olaf

Madera Canyon etc

Catilina State Park

190.  Rufous-backed robin (3)
191.  House finch
192.  Gray Flycatcher
193.  Chipping Sparrow
194.  Say's Phoebe
195.  Black-throated sparrow
196.  Rufous-winged sparrow

Ft Huachuca
197.  Hutton's Vireo
198.  Townsend's Warbler
199.  Dark-eyed Junco
****200.*** Sinolea Wren (5)
201.  Hammond's Flycatcher
202.  White-breasted nuthatch

Pena Lake and canyon
203.  Golden Eagle
204.  Rufous Crowned sparrow
205.  mallard
206.  Bufflehead
207.  Ruddy duck
208.  Common merganser
209  marsh wren
210.  White-throated sparrow
211.  Rock wren
212.  Northern Flicker
213.  Mexican Jay
214.  Dusky Flycatcher

South of Green Valley

215.  Long-eared owl
216.  Lesser scaup

Florida Canyon
217.canyon wren
218.  Conyon Towhee
219.  Green-tailed towhee
220.. Spoted towhee
221.  Black chinned sparrow
222.  Painted redstart
223.  Rufous-capped warbler
224.  Elegant trogan

Madera canyon

225.  Pine siskin
226.  Acorn woodpecker
227  Arizona Woodpecker
228.  Yellow-eyed junco
229.  Hepatic Tanager
230.  Bridled titmouse
231.  Phainopepla

Santa Cruz Flats

232:  Brewer's Blackbird
233.  White-winged dove
234.  Eurasian Collared dove

Phoenix.

235.  Rosy-faced lovebird

1/5/2015 The 3:10 to Yuma

Big Year Day 5

Total Birds:  189
Coded birds: 6

Car miles driven today, 410
walked 3

I had said it was going to be the 6:10, I lied it is now the 3:10, I'll get to that a bit later on

I left San Antonio a little unsteady.  Allwin had put $8500 in damage in my car hitting a deer.  I had lost my field guide somewhere, either deep into the bowels of my car, although I don’t think so.  It was most likely left at a hotel.  I was also feeling that I was birding so fast I was losing the bigger picture.  Many of these birds I will never see again and this may be some of my last time spent with my daughter.  I needed to savory it and savor the moment.            I was on a flight with army recruits going somewhere for basic training.  Some where excited, most were apprehensive on what they had gotten themselves into.  They were braver than I was as I would never have enlisted.  I don’t know.  In my mind, being in the military used to be a noble thing but the way we’ve chewed up so many young men in needless and endless engagement I am uncertain.            My own young woman who had came with me impressed me as a birder.  Lena was fun, witty, and sharp eyed and eared in the field.  I needed her and I am glad she came with and is coming with more….more Lena more often, I say.  To be frank, I wore my wife out.            I feel apprehensive every time I fly into Phoenix.  It is from my zoo adventure in 1988 when I accidentally wondered into the oryx exhibit in the zoo when I got lost in the desert.  I was thrown out and permanently banned from the place.  I was reminded about that when we stumbled upon some exotic game animals on Martinena Road near Encinal, Texas.  I wasn’t sure what we saw.  They were bigger than impala but looked a bit like them.  Lena was impressed. That, however is something for another time. 
            The weather announced as we descended, fifty five and rain in the Phoenix area…oh swell, more of the same.  I will be birding alone on the 5th, but then like old guest star week, I have old pals coming to help me.
Buckeye AZ:  The Thrasher Spot
You got to love the thrasher spot but BEWARE!  the eggs farms are moving in and since I was last here in 12/ 2014, they have moved within a half mile of the prime spot.  Maybe the thrashers will move west, I don't know.  So come soon or miss out.
I hit a triple here at day break.  Three thrashers.Thrashers are odd birds.  They look funny.  The skulk around.  You call the LeConte's and a Crissal pops out.  You call a Crissal and a Bendire's pops up, in general, the LeConte's never pop up, they just run like a crazed roadrunner on meth.  I found one in such a mood on the south of Salome Road, which I think is the better side, less bed frames and garbage, too.  No burnt furniture...well this is Arizona desert, there is burnt furniture everywhere, but less.        I tried my best Elmer Fudd imitation as I scurried from bush to bush (salt bushes?), trying to get the LeConte's in my camera, but as it ran with it's tail up high, I eventually got distracted by a sagebrush sparrow, which, I may add are about as challenging as the thrasher, this is a lucky shot almost shot on my hip.


It sucks but it is identifiable.  I finally wiped out and lost track of the thrasher and the sparrows.
The other two thrashers sat up nice, Bendire's thrasher

Crissal Thrasher, they look like the LeConte's but do not have black in the lores, the space between the eyes and the bill.

One has to be careful seeing black lores with an orange butt because the Abert's towhee also meet that description but have a sparrow type bill.  They are smaller, too.  I know it is an Abert's towhee as I can catch up to them and eventually they will fly.  This is a blurry photo of one that stopped.


I also bagged the black-tailed gnatcatcher in the thrasher spot.  I like trying to photograph gnatcatchers

3 new birds and all I needed in the bag, I headed like a maniac to Yuma.  
Riverside Park and Yuma East Wetlands, Yuma AZ
They had been reporting a streak-backed oriole here for over a week and maybe over a month as there is some thought of a missed ID of this bird earlier.  This is a very small park and right off I-8, but this was the 2nd easiest bird chase, I have ever had.  I could hear it chattering before I even got my seat belt off and I had it in my bins before the car was even out of drive.  Score one for me, my luck is back!!!  This more typical my kind of luck, I am the luckiest birder, ever.

a good look at it's back


I've shot better photographs in my life but heck, this is a code 4 bird!!  The lighting stunk and well, my better lens is still in San Antonio drying out.  Lifer #717 though...bird #180 for the year!
I took a moment to enjoy and savor the moment, I may never be back here.  The park is at the old Prison Cemetery....we should have more parks in cemeteries!


The bird is actually in the second tree from the right, BTW.  Those are graves.  The oriole is feeding on berries but I have never seen such a fore lorn tree, that oriole better find a new tree.
I took time out to enjoy the Colorado River, it is actually quite peaceful here and to my surprise at 3:10, who was clicking and even once called none other than a Ridgeway's Rail. I have seen them many times in Imperial Beach when they are flooded out at high tide but heck, I can go do something else in San Diego. 
I enjoyed the serenity of a black phoebe

I was watching a Anna's Hummingbird male 


It was nice and then a pit bull terrier found me, and well he just licked me...silly mutt.  Then he barked and wanted to play.  Birding was over.
I drove east to Tucson, and was going to work the desert for sparrows but found this scary sign.

This is right across from a development, but I didn't want to be what next went boom in the night, so I heeded the warning and drove on and then where there weren't signs, I found BLM land where everyone now camps for free, it is so odd to just find groups of campers out in the middle of nowhere and I don't know what to think about it but maybe that is how all the garbage gets out here.  I couldn't bird here either.

I drove east at a break neck speed and tried to find a mountain plover in the Santa Cruz Flats north of Tucson but it was raining and getting dark so that wrapped up a rather long but productive day.
It was only day 5 and already I have been helped in person by two people, one I've never met, I showed a man his 500th life bird (zone-tailed hawk), I've had one odd Ebird rarity argument over a flock of Sandhill cranes of all things, near a dairy farm north of Gila Bend.  They were everywhere....I have had one person scold me for my birding ethics and not like how I wrote something, had three unfriendly incidents with birders in the field being rude, so I have sandbagged one ebird post as a result.  Hey, don't push me in the mud to get a bird!!  I have uncovered one probable wrong ID of a post I chased....but I wasn't there and it could have been seen.  IDK, I have also had a very nice comment by a big time big year birder in the past and been dissed by another big time birder on a facebook friend request, oh well.  I was also dissed by an optics company but that is for another post.  Let me just say, my wife's binoculars, her Zeiss pair would make a very good one if you are in the market.
You know, I'm just the little train who thinks he can, like the 3:10 to Yuma.  I'm in the desert now but I'm a coming down the tracks.  In fact, I was even the medical officer on a train cruising around trying to see if people ignored the flashers in Wisconsin on day, and I didn't get to drive but I ran the air horn. It was the same engine as is leading the set crossing the Yuma bridge.  Small world.  I like trains, and used to photograph and chase them more than birds.  
I promised an explaination, 3 is for three thrashers today and 10th FOY bird --a code four, the streak-backed oriole.
  189 birds, three states and you know, I can go at this pace all year, the key of being an ER doctor, this is how we live.  12 on 12 off.  Cleaning up Tucson tomorrow and the 7th, with the king of Green Valley.  Will report more on the end of that project.  I will be netting some serious numbers in the next two days if the rain stays away.
Anybody need something to do?  You can come and hang with the me, but bring your snake boots and some energy because we got one speed and that is GO!  Send me your free time and I can work you in.  BYOB, beer and bins
keep the comments coming
Olafat large in Arizona, 
Thrasher spot171.  White-crowned sparrow172.   Crissal Thrasher173.  Abert's Towhee174.  Black-tailed gnatcatcher175.  Le Conte's Thrasher176.  Sagebrush sparrow177.  Bendaire's  Thrasher 
Road to Yuma178.  Sandhill Crane179.  Northern harrier
Yuma180.  Streak-backed Oriole181.  Anna's Hummingbird182. Black phoebe183. Costa's Hummingbird184.  Gambel's Quail185.  Ridgeway's rail186.  Gila Woodpecker187.  Sharp-shinned hawk
i-8188.  Common Raven
Santa Cruz Flats189.  Horned lark

January 4th, Plans go Awry

January 2-4  Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX

Running bird total: 170
Coded birds: 5
Miles driven, 2850
golf cart miles 3

They say that you plan a big year to a tee and then on day 4, everything goes out the window.  I, too, have experienced that bit of sage prescient foresight but for different reasons than whomever invented this saying.

We arrived from Ft Lauderdale a bit beat up from my computer incident and terrible flight and then upon landing in McAllen in was 42 degrees and raining.  I had my wife and daughter with both were expecting southern Texas weather and my daughter only had with one pair of pants.  What we would experience in the next 36 hours would put hair on any man's chest and pull the hair our of his head.
To say it politely, January 2nd was a brutal day for birding.

We went to Brownsville for the red-crowned parrots and things didn't start out well.  We couldn't find any...then everyone got cold, just about to give up when I heard a parrot chorus but just for a second.  I was an entire park away and we had to walk to the opposite corner in Oliveras Park (sp?) and we finally found them silent, patient in a tree.  "Damn birds!" would be a frequent saying of mine for 36 hours.


I shot a few photos in the rain and we headed out to Frontera Audubon Center for the wettest stakeout ever.  Goal bird Crimson-collared grosbeak.  Let me preface it by saying 5 hour stake out on three separate occasions  on 1/2/ 2016 for the bird and my wife just about died, my daughter impressed me by her toughness but in the end she was literally turning blue.  We found out we missed seeing it well just ten minutes before we got there.  It was the parrots fault no doubt, if they would have just squawked earlier.  Luckily in all this my daughter and I heard it call by the shed on two occasions, the second time unmistakable and we saw it in deep in the underbrush move but we could neither go in to get it nor photograph it. Other birders wore garbage bags, tents, anything to help in the rain.  It was just that bad. We came back to try for a photo on 1/3 and it was not so nasty, just damp and 45 degrees, but after an hour we already had the bird and it was clear that we were not going to get the photogenic moment and we needed to see some birds.  but more on that later.  It was reseen about an hour after we left for photographs, but alas, not all lifers get to be photographed, oh well.

I took some shots of clay-colored thrush, which were all over Frontera but then despite having waterproof equipment on my camera, I got soaked I had to keep it in the car the rest of the day by the heater to dry it off for fear of ruining it.  At least I got some photos of the thrush




Santa Ana NWR.

To say it was wet at Frontera would not be honest, it was like a lake and compared to that Santa Ana was a waterfall.  We got suckered in, during one of the dry off breaks at Frontera we drove over for the northern jacana.  It wasn't raining in the parking lot.  I should have realized that.  It was 11am and I was the only car in the parking lot and that, even after the aggressive ticket taker gave my new 2016 federal park pass the once over.  No one was as much of an idiot as us.  We walked to Willow Lake in relative dryness, then we reached the 3rd overlook and it was then that the skies really gave way.  Finally in an act of something like pity, I sent the women to the 2nd overlook as it was covered.  I braved it for 15 minutes more and even my raincoat was giving way so I evacuated to the shelter, too.

"Dad, does that bird have yellow wings?"  My daughter asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Thought so."  Lena said.  "You wouldn't believe it, but it was right under the blind.  It flew off though."  I was somewhere between angry and dejected and then they added.  "but it flew right into those reads. Are fingers were too cold to use the touch screens on the phone."   It was there but never did I see the complete bird with a couple of reeds always in the way and it finally flew up clear as any jacana could and moved 50 feet.  Impressive yellow wings, that was true.  Another life bird for me, #716.  I wanted to fist bump them but they just ran to the car.

The women were so wet so we went car birding to Shrimp Bridge, which was way back near Port Isabel. I was hoping in vain that the rain would cease, during the grumbling in the car.  We did get there, there were lots of shorebirds and terns.  There was one long-billed curlew and one Wilson's Plover, whew!  Two birds I have not typically seen much of.  I really wanted both off the board.  I had seen one 4 days earlier scouting the location.

The ladies fell asleep in the car as I hurried back to Frontera for another round of wet 'fun' passing our previous motel again.

After getting the grosbeak on 1/3.  We went over to Estero Llano Grande to roll up the numbers.  The common paraque was back in the usual spot,



The screech owl was absent though, one of the few strike outs

Afterwards, we headed west to bird up the valley to Laredo, we stopped at Anzaluas Park and found out it was closed for the holidays...a huge park closes when people are off?

The Burrowing owl spot was nearby but unlike when I was over here 3 days earlier, with 5 border guards camped on the spot, we could find the owl, finally taking one for the team I walked the rocks, nearly breaking an ankle.  It finally flushed and we got it photographed.  Bird off the board!




My daughter counted cops in Starr County, one, 2, 3...40, 41.  20 less than last time.  we didnt count the 34 parked at the Holiday Inn Express in Zapata.
Next at Saleneno we got three oriolesHooded Oriole

Altimira Oriole

Audubon's Oriole

We searched San Ygnatio for seedeaters but found none, we did get ringed kingfisher, and a gray hawk right over our car.

We woke up after overnighting in Laredo.  I used to say I didnt like Laredo, mostly die to the sulphur smell, but it does have a few ups.  We got lucky in Laredo, we went to the golf course west of town, Max Mendel Golf Course and ran into a local birder named Raul and a woman Katherine from the state park who were looking for red-billed pigeons to confirm last weeks sighting posted on Ebird.  They were suspicious as there was no fruit for them, and they are rare in the winter.  Gracious hosts, they also showed us some white-collared seedeaters.  I saw 2, my daughter 5 but they were down on the river in the cane and it was early and bad light, I had very good photos of this bird so I didn't care for a bad one.  We cruised all the spots which was GREAT intel but alas no red-billed pigeons this time. I'll wait to they come back in the spring and I'll be back as the Terminator says.
an olive sparrow peeking out of a bush


I did get a verdin, we flushed a roadrunner driving around in our golf cart, and I also got a Lincoln's sparrow and a gadwall for five more species, pedestrian though they were.  Most importantly, the seedeater was off the board, coded bird #4 for the LRGV.
We headed quickly up to Martinena road in Encinal for quail but alas no quail, four new species of sparrows were found and a very photogenic Harris Hawk, and we needed to head to the airport

On I-35 we called our son Tyko, home from college.  He went to Minneapolis with his brother, yesterday.  It was a nice chat.  "By the way dad, there is something I should tell you."  He siad in closing the conversation.  "We took your car to Minneapolis.  I had my daughter's car down here for the room and to put bikes inside it at the airport.
"That was okay," I said.
"Well it was foggy and Allwin sort of lightly hit a deer.  We threw the parts in the back." My wife put her hand on mine.  I was literally speechless and I requested they send me a picture.
They sent me a picture 5 minutes later.  


Then the estimate, $8500

My specially outfitted birding mobile ..out of commission...sh%%t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can it be fixed in two weeks when I return?  
No one was hurt, and that is what is important but why did they not think to mention this before the status of the cat food?   IDK........but Plans are awry..........
I'm on the 6:10 to Yuma and the Streaked-backed Oriole awaits and I had to pack for bear and organize what I was taking from the airport in San Antonio.  

The fun of living in your car! I got two bicycles in it, a full sized cooler in front.
Well, more from Arizona, and hope my car gets fixed.....children!!
Olaf.

1/1 Dog Gone Lucky

Ft Lauderdale Florida
1/1

Day One Bird Total 74
Coded Birds-1

I flew into Ft Lauderdale on New Year's Eve and met up with my daughter and wife.  We celebrated the New Years at a local Italian Restaurant and then drank a bottle of Moet champagne back at the Ramada Inn in Newfoundland time, we were tired and it was a long day traveling.  Besides...I had a big year to start early in the morning.

Don't let the Bird count total fool you.  Although that number is important.  Eventually I will run out of easy birds and it is actually the coded bird number that is important.  These are rare birds coded 3-5, with five being the rarest birds rarely seen in the USA.  I can explain that later.  I have to say that that number needs to get around 80 for me to have a chance at any record and over 60 for this to be considered much of a year.

We were at Crispy Creme before 0630 and my wife and the woman at the drivethru had a misunderstanding about tea.  "We have sweet tea, dear."  Became the frequent southern answer to my poor wife asking for tea.  We drove into Bark'm at Markham Dog Park just before 7am and we went to work searching, I went right and the ladies went left and then after some distraction I saw Lena looking at something it was 7:07, it wasn't even dawn yet and she had the rare bird 6 feet away.  Brid #1.  Western Spindalis.  Code 3.  It was very photogenic.  It just sat there like it wasn't even there.



Ten minutes of snapshots later it flew off and then we went and looked around finding a few birds, my wife found a bathroom for her tea and when we were walking back from the pond, I spotted the flock of spot-breasted orioles with the spindalis in tow and off they all went into the trees.

We met a birder just showing up at 8 when we were moving to other spots and it turned out she waited 5 hours for the flock of orioles to swing back through this part of the park.  My advice is to walk the dog early to see this bird if you are going to Markham.

Well primary and secondary birds seen, it was time to run up the score before the plane left at 6pm.  We went off to Loxahatchee NWR and saw limpkins and other birds, nothing really special.


The we went off to Snook Islands Wildlife area in Lake Worth and I run into the first birder who recognized me, "Are you Olaf the nude birder?"  She asked me I had run into her on the exact same spot 15 months ago.   We chatted about her spot, the loss of Mangroves as sanctioned by the local government and the birdlife.  She gave a tip on the Nanday parakeet flock.  We drove across the bridge and found them in a tree.  Nanday parakeets


I don't know what was playing in the background, Barry White, but all of a sudden a parakeet orgy broke out and I wanted to cover my daughter's eyes.  Man the got busy.......

We left the XXX Parakeet branch show and then headed to Green Cay, it was busy there but we saw all the herons we needed but they were too close.

I got head shots of least bitterns


American bitterns



All birds that are tough to see, but in my case they were too close..weird.
We wrapped up the overtime at 3pm and headed for the airport, 74 birds on the board and feeling good.  We had almost three hours at the airport and then IT happened.  First, my daughters can of salt caused suspicion with the TSA.  I waited for them to finish and my laptop still out was put down on the chair I was sitting next next to...then they got through and we went to the gate.  I went to plug in my computer and sh$&t!  It was gone.  I'd left it back next TSA.  I got back and the TSA guys said someone took it, it wasn't their problem.  I couldn't find anyone.  I found a skycap who told me to go out to United Baggage.  I went out there and they said it would be lost and found.
Lost and Found it turned out had a sign.  "We will be open sometime next week.  Happy New Year!"I went back to baggage.  Eventually, someone at the sheriff's office remembered hearing of a computer.  I found out it was taken by a United employee.  Whew!Problem was, he was at break, nobody knew where he was.  I sat down dejectedly,  three unfinished novels were on it, one with no backup whatsoever and the other two two edits earlier.  I was devastated.  The woman at the desk got tired of looking at me, head in hands, she made some calls.  It turned out the employee eats lunch with the baggage supervisor and he brought it back to the old guy sitting akimbo between two unclaimed pieces of luggage. I was going to give her a $50 tip but the handover happened so fast everyone was gone, but I had the laptop!
I went back through security and was selected for the extra special treatment.  I was ready to bend over when they let me pass.  I NEEDED A REALLY BIG BEER.  Then I realized I had no battery power when we boarded the plane and for the worst flight in sometime, I had nothing to do.  We were late to Houston and we boarded early, it was rough, really rough and it seemed like it was one of those flights that just wouldn't ever end.  You know the type, and no plug ins in the better seats for powerless me.  We have just enough time to run across the Houston Airport to catch the flight to McAllen TX but by 1120, we were in our motel in San Benito and sleeping for day #2.
I have to apologize for this blog as I was pretty much out of my mind and I couldn't write it when I usually do on the plane to next destination.  
Florida I trip total 74 birds!  It was a start and I was dog gone lucky! to get my computer back, and I not talking about the spindalis for that...thank you Lena!  Her rarest bird to date.
Next report South Texas
Bye for now
Olaf

Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas!

7 days from now I'll be hopefully in a dog park in Florida tallying a rare bird, but a lot can happen in even a week.  My Big Year awaits, meanwhile I'm in Wisconsin celebrating Christmas, eating potato sausage, egg bake, opening presents and having good cheer.

My son Allwin returned from Bonn, Germany and his studies, I picked him up at the airport yesterday and like the prodigal son, he has returned, but was a little jet-lagged.



Here he is with Grandmother Lucille, generation 1 and 4 in our family together.  Everyone had to get photographed with their new hats and scarves, this in Grandmother's present and this is my sister's hat and glove set



Yea...what would a Packer shareholder wear for Christmas?  Nobody had enough courage to give anyone a purple and gold hat...

My mother goes all out for Christmas, Christmas china, twenty decorated trees, fancy Spode Christmas China...


My daughter holding my Niece, Lily next to the table all set for Grandmother Lucille's Christmas Meatball Dinner.


Another of the many trees in this home.

My Christmas tradition is my annual Christmas letter, which I got out a week ago and this year's done using quotes from Victor Hugo, so if you didn't get one consider yourself lucky.

It is also traditional that all the men go Ice-fishing on Christmas day but due to El Nino, this is only the second year we have no ice on Big Wood Lake in my lifetime,


The ice edge out about 150 feet from my mom's house with a pair of American Crows looking for anything organic that may have been blown up on the ice.  The last dip out so to speak on ice fishing was in the winter of 1997-98 when the Big El Nino led to Sandy Komito's very BIG YEAR!  I can only hope....

I ice-fished that December using an tractor inner-tube tied by a rope to a tree in our front yard where we lived 80 miles north of here.  I don't remember the fish biting terribly well and it was 'cool' seeing the tube pushing down the two inches of ice when I was near my hole.  Seeing the water come out of the hole can be unnerving to those not used to ice fishing on the edge.

Unable to fish this year, we hiked in our snow covered forest and I called in a dozen black-capped chickadees impressing my twins, we found 4 trumpeter swans, I flushed a ruffed grouse, and and we watched gray squirrels feed in the few inches of snow.

We opened gifts and Santa was good to me!!  I got what I wanted for Christmas, detailed road atlases of California, Texas, and Arizona, so hopefully, I wont get lost next year.  How did you do?  I hope you all have had as wonderful of a Christmas as I have and had time to spend with your families, next year, I may not have much time to spend with family trying for rare birds, although in 2012, I got a Boreal Owl driving at dusk to Grandmother's house on Christmas eve.  That story is well done in my birding adventure book so I wont repeat but one never knows what miracle can happen on Christmas.


My daughter Lauren Elizabeth "Lena" 15, twins Allwin, and Tyko, aged 20 wife Silja, and me, Olaf the large, and Bjorn the Christmas bear who sneaked into the photo
Merry Christmas!
God Jul!!
The next report will be from somewhere on the road, rare birds are being reported in Yuma, Victoria BC, Florida, south Texas, Ohio, Nova Scotia, and south of Montreal, where I may end up is a guarded secret but I could be anywhere!Maybe I'll run into some of you.See you on the trail
Olaf

Logistics!

Trumpeter Swans in Ice Flows of St Croix River Sunday
December 1, 2015

1 month to go.  I have been spending my last month working on logistics of a big year and I don't think most birders even know much work this takes, or is appreciated by birders.  It certainly isn't for the non-birders.  You really just can't go on a big year, maybe Neil Hayward did, although nothing is truly accidental, and even with unlimited funds, sometimes you just can't go to certain venues or trips.  Here it is December 1, 2015 and already stuff is full up or really really tight to get anything...or worse, no one will take a reservation.

1) There are no open tour slots for Gambell in June, at least that I know of., I have scheduled a Wilderness Tour for a couple of days but that is now full, too.  There is also no way to stay there on one's own as rooms are full during that period.

The fall WINGS tour may still have an opening, but the people who schedule Gambell are unwilling to commit to giving any independent a room pending confirm on what the tour(s) will be needing, and as they wont commit until May, it may be a while.  All this and if you go independently you have to ship in food ahead of time...

2) The May Repo Pacific coast cruise tours are full and have been for sometime but I was able to book as an independent, Both my January and February Pelagics are now full and I'm trying to get the May Adak Pelagic full so it still goes. Everyone, it seems wants to go on trips that cuase me the most pain and not on the ones I need them to go on. Even the auto tour going up Mt. Washington is starting to fill up in June.  Who says birding is a dying hobby.

I think I also got the last rooms under $300 a night in Key West in April.  Last time I was there the only rooms available past Marathon were $1100/ night.  I actually joked with the woman at the desk and asked if a woman came with that.  She whispered "No, but for a few hundred extra, that could be arranged.  Would you have any preference for hair color and you can't add that to the credit card.  I guess I could book it as incidentals."  I kind of didn't know what to say at that point. Only in Key West can an escort be a rounding error in the price of the room, wait, that isn't just Key West..........

3) Nome in June.  Nome is another game of chicken.  The Aurora Inn won't confirm a room or for that mater even acknowledge you sent an email asking for one.  They will wait on the tours for early June.  So there may be a room with a couple of weeks left. The Nugget doesn't always have towels and when they do, there may not be hot water and they don't take your name for reservations only a number, no number, sorry.  This year, they had 6 no shows and I know three of them was me (and I was there..I kept loosing the numbers).  The Dredge #7 is between the two.  Last year, I fought and fought rental cars, even thinking of shipping a car in, I got one with help of the new Mayor Richard Benneville, then I arrived and found 20 unused cars.  I got the last open rental for June for next year at the end of September, again, I suspect, they'll have empty cars.  I got sick of awaiting on the Aurora Inn manger to alot rooms so Dredge had their last room available and so I took it,

"no cars to rent in Nome"
One of the Nome goal birds--Arctic Warbler
4) The most expensive "super-saver" scheduled flight in North America is the Anchorage to Adak flight, listed as of this writing at $1250 round trip.  So I guess a guy should just pay that right?
Now I don't have any Alaska Air miles, but last time I went, i could book it on their code share partner...Delta.  I have tons of Delta miles.  But alas NO!  Every other Alaska flight but not this one..

Plan B:  However, you can book it on America using American miles.  But alas I don't have miles there either, but I could buy American miles and it would take just 25,000 miles for the flight.  Cost $635 for the miles and then $10 for the flight.  Total  $640

Plan C:  I also have tons of AMEX points.  I can switch them to all kinds of miles, Delta, Aeroplan, but alas Not American and especially NOT Alaska.  However, at a ratio of 12 points for ten miles, I can switch them to British Air Avios miles.  AND because they are a partner for American I can buy the flight for only 15,000 miles...YEA!...?.....Unfortunately, you can't book Alaska Air directly on BA, you have to call them.  I read the internet that said British Air has the worst phone customer service in the industry worldwide.  They (like British Air) recommended calling Singapore office....really Singapore?  Their office is open 9-5, and what time is that in South Dakota.  I called the listed number for here.  In a very pleasant British accent..."Your wait time is 95 minutes."  Really?  then after 40 minutes I got cut off.  Sh&&t

Plan D:  I opened an Alaska Airlines miles account.  So far so good.  I can buy enough miles (I only need 15,000) too.  The cost...$420.  Wait, I can buy miles for $420 or just buy the flight for $1250.....what kind of f'd up system is that?  WHY WOULD YOU EVER BUY THE FLIGHT?  I plugged in my new number.  I got the "Account not eligible to purchase miles"  response....really?  I now have to wait to 10am to be able to call customer service.....apparently one can't buy miles unless they've been a member for a period of time,....so I don't know what to do?

Probably take the American air price? Bird in the hand?
I cashed in my hotels.com for a hotel in Anchorage at least that saved some money.  I get a free night but only worth $73.....where can a guy stay for that?  I still had to pay $100

Laysan's Albatross is one of many key birds seen off of Adak at sea
Land, sea, and air, it all requires frequently advance reservations hope and prayer.  Hope you are going and a prayer you'll make it.....This not to mention questions like do I go to Nome in February or November?  Can I do all of the pacific NW in June?  and the daily questions like chase or not to chase?  But those will come in 31 more days.....31 more days!??!!?
I don't know whether to be afraid, excited, or what?
Olaf

A final trip to Paradise

November 1, 2015  Baie Orientale, St Martin FWI
Here it is, two months away from Big Year day zero, and 58 days before I leave for Texas.  Like all great adventures, one needs a start and a finish.  Before great battles, Spartan Kings went to visit the Oracle.  Others went and prayed for guidance at chapels, cathedrals, or went to places of special spiritual importance and sought out special people for blessings.  Me?  
I have my own special spiritual place and I guess it is filled with naked gurus and everything and I wont be able to visit it at all in 2016.  You would guess at where this is if you read my  Boobies Peckers and Tits or any of my many blogs on this place.  This place is Orient Beach in St Martin in the Caribbean and specifically, Club Orient.
To make a long story short, I went to the beach, made peace with the beach gods and got myself ready mentally for my adventure.  This isn’t done like a normal shrine.  It is done by sitting under a yellow umbrellareading during my “Naked seawatches”  I watch birds and naked people.   The seawatch wasn't that productive, a few frigatebirds, a couple of brown boobies (the avian kind), some royal terns, and a couple of pelicans...very few pelicans for some reason this year, but that is inconsequential. 
I read a book called Big Magic:  Creative Living beyond Fearby Elizabeth Gilbert…(“Eat Pray Love” author)   .this was a book sent to me a week back from one of my ER Doctor friends Celeste Jibben, who like me is a bit of an adventurer.   She (Gilbert and I guess Celeste too) basically gives a license for those creative types like me to write, explore, and to do what you need to do, and ignore those naysayers.  I've had many naysayers and not just family members.  I once had an older woman pick up my book and read about it, put it down and proudly say it was fiction because nobody would have the time or money to do this, and even if they did, such a person would be prudent enough to save their money…..well not only was that adventure NOT fiction, the same goofy guy is going to go out and do it all again, this time with pants on. It is tough to prepare mentally for a textile year of birding while you aren’t wearing any pants or well anything else, but this trip was for the soul and not for birding well almost..
Like all spiritual journeys mine involved attending a religious festival of sorts.....
The festival I’m talking about is the Annual Halloween party at Club OrientI’ve written about this before that describing it in 100, 1000, or even 10,000 words cannot give it justice.  With cameras not allowed, the thousand words worth of pictures can’t be included here.Well here is a couple tamed early ones, my wife Silja as “Dr Barely Hertz”  complete with a “Trust me, I’m your doctor” button.  The dance floor in The Papagayo is very hot so air holes have been added to lab coat
Olaf, well, I was her patient, complete in just a hospital gown and a Foley Catheter and bag (accessories are key!)  I was jaundiced from Liver failure (too much drinking during the pre-party, hence the dark color of my “urine”   

I had a bandage on my bum that for some reason didn’t want to come off until much later, even that made people laugh
It was an intense party, one of the best, costumes have been more creative but dancing was the best of all parties.  There is a pattern to these parties…..arrive a bit late, do a show off phase making rounds of the 160 participants, then you sit and eat, then you dance and work your costumes, you got to get noticed to win, start a crowd murmur so to speak.....then they give awards $500 in lodging and other things, then as the dancing and drinking continues and it gets hotter, costumes come off …well what there were of them and pretty much everyone is wearing only their birthday suits by the end.
Someone asked me why I now dance the “Curly Shuffle” with all the women….being the only male except the head waiter dancing with 30 naked women?  Do I really have to answer this?  Even a guy with two size 14 feet can dance “to the right to the right to the right right right, to the left to the left to the left left left, the walk it all about …”
Let me say the most stunning woman of the week was a recent cancer survivor, not long our from a breast reconstruction for breast CA at a very young age and if she could come here anyone could and quite likely she was also coming to this beach for a bit of a spiritual answer.
Costumes, everyone will want to ask me about the costumes……of course there was the usual slutty costumes, ones I couldn’t figure out, simply masks etc, and the usual Emperor with no clothes but others defy description…so I’ll just leave at such, but there were big winners, big winners and well I think the winner was deserved this year.  
First place couple:  Body painted parrots (red macaws --papagayos) complete with a rubber head and blue wings and nothing else save the paint paint.  The manager told them to shower otherwise they were buying sheets.  The next morning there were feathers floating all around the resort.  
2nd.  “Good and evil."  Body painted as forest, -Garden of Eden, she, breasts painted as sumptuous apples, (and the tree as well) him, the male appendage as the head of the yellow and black snake (fer-de-lance?) that also wrapped his body.  They did have crowns of leaves.
3rd, the horny wolf and the little red riding hood….yea use your imagination there
Best male:  the best of the three “Kaitlyn Jenners”  the guy with a sinatra hat in a sports bra..c'mon man!   The winner was complete with transvestite approved lingerie to cover certain anatomical issues, it was a carbon copy of the Vanity Fair cover!.....well sort of, Kaitlyn is hotter than this older guy.but he wore his tiara well...then there was also a very perverted Cat in the Hat, so perverted, Mike Meyers would be impressed………he got second, well it could have been Mike I guess
Best Lady, a Woman dressed up as a pumpkin patch, weeds and pumpkins in the correct spots…LOLThere is nothing like anatomical correct pumpkins and I guess when her man said to plow her field it was a triple meaning. 
There was a bee, with a stinger that got me in the dance floor, she was fondling my urine bag, is that sexual?  Her husband was the bee keeper and had stings all over him, she got second
3rd, dear in head lights lady with car lights the light attached to her breasts.  The deer got hot and lost his horns.......then his head, then well, he had nothing else on.
Alas……..we couldn’t win.  I danced until I couldn’t walk, which was something and it wasn’t even because of too much drinking as we were “good.”  Maybe dressing like Kaitlyn Jenner isn’t politically correct but heck, we are nudists………nothing is very politically correct here at this party, even the couple wearing the costume being the electrical outlet and the plug in, may have offended.
Only during a dance here would you talk about a woman in a tube dress pulling her neckline down being to under her ample breasts so they both popped out and with her dress riding up to her hips with nothing on underneath we pondered why she didn't just take it off?  She eventually did.
Well that is that report and some very good dancing was held at other times, pre-party, we had a good 65 birthday party for a friend Stuart on Thursday where the bartender accidentally dropped the storm shutter on my head.  Never be the last guy to leave the bar!  I left that party with an ice bag on my head and realized even he had failed to knock any sense in me, so at this party just limping home was an improvement.
The wildlife........no not the naked people! 
The area where we stay is getting overrun with Green Iguana like this one
Green Iguanas are not native to St Martin, apparently they all are descendants of iguanas that arrived in a box back in 1995 which nobody claimed.  I guess the dinner event got cancelled or something.  The workers released them.  The native iguana the Lesser Antillean Iguana is or was the most tasty of all iguana and unfortunately they were eaten off St Martin years ago.





Besides the iguana and a single mongoose, we saw the usual assortment of birds, some pictures may make it to my island field guide of the birds, but it wasn't a birding mecca,
 I drove from the airport and around to the French side and looked at the water in the pond by the French airport in Grand Case and there they were 4, repeat 4 flamingoes!  Damn flamingoes and as luck would have it…again, rain came in and we didn’t stop, this wasn’t a little shower either.  There have been 1 other sighting since my sighting hustling to the airport for a plane in 2014 from the window of the cab and he also didn’t document the damn pink birds. He saw it landing in a plane in the same pond from St Barths and ran to chase it.   Extirpated in 1936, seeing one is akin to Bigfoot, but they do live on both sides of the island and now again I’d claim, they fly over and the naysayers would doubt the sighting, but what else could I mistake a flamingo for?  Roseate Spoonbills are even rarer on the island.  I visited the pond 5 times in the week and five times the only thing pink I saw was my sunburn.  Oh well………..damn flamingoes.
I did go out and photograph one of the more obscure birds on the island, the scaly-naped pigeons at Anse Marcel, there are really only three good spots to find them on the island and only one that doesn’t involve getting mugged or an expensive lunch.  Very few of them are around.  This is my second sighting, first photographs.  They are not quality publishable for my island field guide but one can’t have them all.  These pigeons are very shy birds as humans to them are a threat.



I got two island firsts, an American Golden Plover and Ring-necked ducks in my excursions to find the flamingoes.   AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER, my island record, someone saw presumably the same one a few weeks earlier.

LESSER ANTILLEAN BULLFINCH

I finally was able to photograph an AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER


Bananaquit
these were just of the few birds I saw, I will note that pearly eyed thrasher were everywhere, many more than any other time on the island.


Otherwise I stayed put, sold a few of my books, the Club Orient Boutique is one of my best retail locations and had three people stop me and say how impressed they were about my book.  I should have bugged a few of my friends for a few sales of my new fictional novels but I didn’t.  My goal was to get a tan, enjoy being married to a wife books and blogs are written about, and find my inner self. 
I had higher things to think about.  I know I can ignore all and spend a year on the road.  Anyone who has survived a Surgical internship for a year will understand that a Big Year is a piece of cake compared to that….I do not remember 1992-3 fondly at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville PA but it is like scar tissue, one doesn’t forget, but I survived, I persevered, and in the end, I may have even prospered, but again here I am at aged 49 not practicing medicine with a license to do so in three states, so I guess I could.  They tried to break me but in the end they failed, a few have tried, all have failed.  Birds….?
As I came to a special understanding in my week in the sand and sun, so readers, I would ask you, Do you love birds?  I would assume most of you, at least the birders out there, would say yes.  Then I would ask the bigger question one you probably will hesitate to answer yes, Do birds love you?  Now there is the rub!  There is a common belief the living nature is indifferent to them.  There is also the common asked thought of who are you?  Many would ask me as many have asked me in my various businesses, what right do YOU have to do this or even what right do you have for nature to Love you?  I am not a famous birder, probably the opposite, an infamous birder, one who has decided to enjoy life, do what I please, and not follow convention, with the many abundances I have.  I have something better, I understand, though, that nature and birds love me.  It is a clear thing to see anyone who has birded with me has seen it, and noticed how lucky I am…well all except flamingoes.  
The truth…I make my luck, as life and luck is a commensal relationship.  Humans are not parasites that take take take.  Hell, sharp-shinned hawks and Peregrine falcons just take take take too, if you look at it that way.  I learned this during my nude year when at times I felt as one in the universe and have learned to have an emotional relationship with the world around me.  Nature may create the seed but I create the garden.  If my garden is nothing more than to instruct and inform those around us of the birds and life in it so be that.   Maybe it is a bit of a zen philosophy or something more akin to Pastor Olaf and the church I created during my nude big year but the nature is out there and I am to report on it, in my own creative style and that is what I give back.
I left St Martin at peace with it all.  I walked extra slowly from gate B1 to the plane saying “savor it..savor it.”  Much the same as I savored the last northern pike for a while on last summer’s fishing trip, or the view of Glacier National Park.  I felt the hot air, the taste and smell of the ocean intermixed with aircraft fuel, the feeling of a slight wind on my face, the slight pain in my feet from dancing, the bump on my head still not totally healed, or even the slight tightness of my sunkissed skin, fully tan and line free from my week in heavenly bliss.   I had vivid memories in my mind of my hot wife emerging from the ocean or dancing with me at the Pap.....I stopped and looked around and sighed.  In 61 days I get to do what few have dared to do, but heck I spent a week doing what few have ALSO dared to do, spent a week at a nudist resort, and I’ve done that repeatedly.  In the end the Universe may not get me what I want, 750 birds, but it WILL get me what I need, and what that is I have no way to know, but I know it is there out there, somewhere, maybe in St John’s NFLD, maybe in Gambell or the Ruby Mountains, but I know, I just know I would find it, ……….what ever IT is, I would find it.

Guess where I'll be 1/2/2017?  
Olaf  

Final Tune-up Texas

September 14, 2015

Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas

I couldn't stand it anymore.  I had friends in Alaska seeing cool birds, one of which, Chris Feeney was inching towards my year total of 516, crossing 500 for the first time CONGRATS Chris!
I had spent all of last week doing depositions, (one for a south Texas issue, coincidentally), taxes, malpractice renewal, finishing a novel, a garage sale (off all things) which, I might add, my wife traded a piano for a box of cookies (we got rid of the piano!),


it was time to get my go bag and go...go birding

Big Year Preparations are underway!

It is September!

4 months to go and I can't put my head under the water, I need to get ready for my BIG YEAR!
so I decided to review my whole preparation for this big year

I am getting this blog template figured out and now know how to get pictures up on it, and becoming more savvy but that is only a start to the process

I am well on my way in other items in getting prepared for my Big Year and below is the list of items I have to get done ahead of time for me to succeed.  I write this here and now for all of you to understand the commitment and effort planning an adventure like this entails.

This is what i think is needed besides too much spare cash for the actual budget, as really there can't be a budget for this adventure, it costs what it costs, you do what has to be done, but the first thing is once admitting that is you still need to......

1.  Get a plan

I have developed a plan and along the way have pre scouted most places that seemed difficult so that I got a few bugs worked out and I know where to go
Since January, I have been to, Newfoundland, Hatteras,NC, Florida, Nome, Alaska, Colorado, Texas, Montana/AB/BC and Arizona, seeing 516 species without putting much effort into that.  I have my massive opening salvo, a South Texas sprint done as a dress rehersal with my daughter in January so I can recreate it



My plan is NOT foolproof as i don't know how to account for el Nino, nobody does and I have started making reservations for things already

You cant say that I will expect to get a Northern hawk owl in Eau Claire WI in January

But I bet I will get a black-whiskered vireo within 20 feet of where i got this bird in Long Key State Park in April, but one can only plan so much, although going to Nome was really helpful, as was Newfoundland


2.  Get the most up to date checklist from ABA

This seems simple but the ABA lists change, both with new appearances of vagrants never before seen and how they handle exotics

will they add the Mitred Parakeet?
Not that this is a big deal as finding one in Miami is like finding humidity but as of this second, it doesn't count.  Last year they added the near-extirpated birds back in.  These birds include the California Condor, the Wisconsin resident Whooping cranes,
 and the Aplomato Falcon, which has always been an issue for Big Year counting, but it now counts for sure, I have to go and get the condor, the falcon counts, and I know that I can always get the crane in Wisconsin if needed, luckily that was the 2014 change so I can plan on these treks.
Maybe they will add another exotic and what if I don't know where to find it?  Finding a Hill Myna isn't always so easy.



3.  I need to get angry but not too angry.

In general my feeling in life is a bit like Rodney Dangerfield...no respect.  I have been marginalized and scoffed at from my Falun Sucker Club days (is that a long story), school sports, academics, medical school residency, to business, to college, to even finding someone to marry me.  But somehow I succeeded....how?  Tell me I can't do something or that I have no place to do something and it makes me mad, then I just put my ears back and can literally go 24/7 towards a goal, almost any goal.  I can be very competitive.

But.......I don't always like it when I get this driven and part of me hopes this doesn't happen with this, I have learned success is all right and well and good but life is about the journey and not the end.  I have many examples like this, I built a large company on spite alone, but I remember my summer between college and high school.  Back then I was golfing sometimes 4-5 rounds (first light until after dusk) a day to get my handicap down to make the college golf team, yes I won a trophy at a tourney at the end of that summer after all of that golf. I actually made the team as a Freshman but when I got there I didn't like the team and I got sick of golf, so I ended up hanging up my golf cleats after my first college tourney and totally stayed away from the sport for 6 years, and then afterwards golf has only been something of an occasional occurrence.  I did 9 holes for my first swings in 3 years last week.  It is probably not a good to do this for birding and right now I have nothing against anyone who I need to leap-frog to get the record, I'm not sure I want to do that.  I have to decide if getting 720 species will make me feel complete, or if I have to find someone to motivate me negatively........life is too short to let others get you, so I need to work on keeping this in check

4.  Ask wife if really okay to do this and convince my 15yo daughter to do a "Junior Big Year"

There is never a good time to do this but I will be 50 next year and well, I'm not getting any younger.

Wife approves! Now Lauren has also fully committed, finally so at  least if she is hanging out with me, I wont loose a year of her life.  Kids are only around for so long.  Unfortunately my wife, Silja can't handle boats with severe motion sickness so she cant come along on many of the trips and she has to supervise my teenager so if said teenager comes with I wont get too lonely.  I think the loneliness of the road is my biggest obstacle to completing this adventure.  Kids grow up way to quickly and this adventure will make great college admission essay material.

Her big year will cost me money but well the memories...priceless?

5.  Make travel as easy and painless as possible, and as cheap as possible.

Gold Elite
I need one more flight to get Delta Gold Medallion status to avoid regular check-in, and security lines and the status also allows me upgrades to better seating.  I get a free checked bag.  Living where I live, Delta is the best for flight options, it also works for WestJet and Alaska, but you have to be at least Gold status.
I also have Platinum AMEX card for free lounge access and occasionally I still will have to fly United to Midland, McAllen TX or Denver, so I have a United Visa for free luggage there, and maybe I'll even have enough miles for a free flight

FFlier Miles
I have nearly 800K miles for Delta now, allowing me to book expensive Alaska Airline flights using miles and allowing me last minute flights on the cheap for the year.  I can probably milk this for at least 20 flights, I hope

Hertz Gold
The line in San Antonio and Phoenix to get a rental car has taken me up to 2 hours, with Hertz gold, I think I can save 12 hours in line during a calendar year

6.  Proper decked out birding-mobile




Now of course as you can see my car needs a bath, but this Volvo XC60 is the best birding car.  My biggest mileage year for a car was some time back when I rolled 76,000 miles on a new car, eclipsing the warranty in only 4 mos!  This car is easy to drive, good clearance for bad roads, AWD, and has comfy seats, it is usually quiet although if it gets hot, its one drawback is it has a really noisy cooling fan you cant turn off.  This current car (2013) just turned 50K and I will undoubtedly not need 76K miles to complete the big year but to live out of it for at least some time, one needs about 4,000 worth of stuff.-  small tent, camping stove, sleeping bag, pillow - Yukon Cooler, these things can keep a sandwich cold for a week- plug in air compressor for flat tires- XM-Sirius radio, so if no local stations, no problem- The tires for this car are hard to find so I bought a new set and plan on keeping a tire in the car in case I get the same problem I had in Alberta, any yahoo can mount it, but I cant be sitting around waiting for a tire
- New Bicycle and bike rack for the back of my car, and to put this on my volvo I need a new receiver hitch.  My last Bicycle was a 1991 Trek, this shift 3, Trek is more upright and better to bird off of and it will me allow to bird the road at Laguna Atascosa in Texas, which is currently closed to autos, damn ocelots or damn drivers hitting ocelots. 
my daughter's Volvo also needs a bath, but that is another issue.-state road atlases for Texas, AZ, Oklahoma, California, Florida, and Colorado for sure are all on my Christmas list, I have Montana, Alberta, South Dakota, and Saskatchewan
7.  Birding equipment
here is my list....-quality spotting scope, digiscoping equipment, bins, tri-pod, camera, telephoto lens, ibird and Sibley's iphone app, an iphone checklist program, field guides, hiking backpack, water bottles...I all have and I really like my new Tamron 150-600 lens, cheap, lightweight and if destroyed...insured and not that much of a loss.  I need a new skylight for it as screwed that up in Canada, I may also need a newer Iphone since my i5 was replaced in 2013 when previous version was run over in western Texas by a Halliburton truck.  
I also need a new head for my tri-pod, I will look at that tomorrow in Minneapolis after getting my hitch.
8.  Get in shape
I'm in pretty good birding shape as having birded quite a bit this year all over, but I need to get my Fat bum back into shape.  Hiking and Biking whatever so when I go to Texas in December I don't die. The real reason I'm doing this big year is that it may prolong my life a year by being more fit....at least one can hope.  This is a work in progress 
9.  Attire
Shoes
An army can only go as far as their feet and stomach's carry them at least according to General Patton. Footwear is the key.
 My snake boots are legendary, they work well in Alaska (waterproof), protect legs from biting bugs, of course mandatory in snake country, and well even up here in the cold (warm).  I can hike all day in them any temp and well they are me. Sometimes, literally, like this Attu photo, they are all I wear

Now I am also breaking in a 2nd pair of hiking bootsmy daughter needs to get a pair of these this fall and break them in.  One has to remember your feet.  I didn't wear them one day on Attu and I screwed up my big toe which still bothers me.
the same vein is Clothing
Did I say that?  Really?  This is a clothed big year and as such, I need a better rain coat and wash and wear shirts, lots of long wool socks 'skiing' for hiking...wool it breathes.  I think I like my collection so I think I'm ready.
10.  Finally, get the other stuff done this year
I got my 25th Anniversary out of the way this year as well as my parents 40th. in October
Get all the big fish caught and out of your system
I'm trying to get all of my pending fiction done and out to publisher, like I secured the rights to this photo for my Sjofn book will be the last of my unfinished fiction to get done
Book events...?  Not next year, I have two in September.
Get all the travel out of the ABA area done, we are doing St.Martin in October as wont be able to go in 2016, sniff sniff, tear tear
Get my co-ed nude sand volleyball playing out of me as I will be in St Paul Island in Alaska when the tourney goes around in 2016

No art auctions, get the art restoration work done, don't start any new hobbies, no new novels..etc.
Take care of my business and sell unwanted crap, like the extra mower now, take care of painting in 2015, buy the new car for wife in 2015, get the counter tops done now etc, 
Get all my dental and medical work done this year, Colonoscopy..?..2017, tooth implant...October
Well that is the list, it is going to be a long year.....almost as long as the wait for it to start........
one cant plan for everything but I am at least planning for some contingencies, I have Canadian cash in my go bag, passport is cool, I will have evac insurance for Alaska, somebody told me I should even buy a handgun....that may be overkill
.Olaf

One more look at the summer that was, 2015

It is August 26, and in many ways one asks what happened to summer.  Yes, I still have my co-ed nude volleyball tournament in 10 days, which this year I am more running than playing although I will play, somebody needs to run it.  It seems I didn't do anything all summer until I look at it closer.


May 29-June 1st

We bid our son Allwin goodbye and took him to the airport for his summer in Vienna doing research. After a fun weekend in E. Bethel, I chased a bird to southern Arizona for three days on a lark, well more on a flycatcher

I saw the tufted flycatcher



I saw a red-faced warbler

I added four life birds, met a new friend, and said hi to a couple of other friends.

Mid-late June

In 2015, since I'm doing a big year in 2016, I decided to do two fishing trips to Smoothrock Lake Ontario, one with the family and one with the "guys".

Lauren caught the biggest pike...of her life 44.5 inches 25 lbs and then a photo releasing it



I caught a 27 inch walleye


we had fun and even saw a bear really close

On nice days, Olaf was being Olaf

I desperately needed a tan that month.  We did everything you do on fishing trips including cookouts, and seeing the sights



My parents even were with


July 11, Minnesota Nude Wedding

I officiated a nude wedding on July 11 for a couple named Bob and Ann.  It was a large affiar and a fun party.  Pastor Olaf was in his usual form



July 13-25

Glacier National Park-beyond

We dropped off our daughter at Swedish Language camp and headed west to recreate our honeymoon, since this was our 25th anniversary.

We stopped to see a rock effigy in NW North Dakota that is a 9 on the rock art meter.

Silja got car sick on the roads.  The day started off romantic that is for sure.  What could I do to make it better?  Nothing says romance better than this camping spot near Chester MT in the literal middle of nowhere filled with nothingness and biting flies...oh the lust filled nights such a place can create...or not


We got to Glacier the next day and it looked just like we remembered it, well, less traffic and it seemed more majestic....maybe 100 trips ago it was that ...IDK.  It was a big traffic jam this time.


We searched for a bird and only found Hoary marmots and bighorn sheep...


The marmot was an old pal because its silly ancestor stole my shoe while on our honeymoon, the shoe's owner was preoccupied on a mountain pass doing married things during this larceny.....I'll say no more ...little thief.  Okay we have never been that shy about things.

I finally found the black swift nest (lifer #709)  in the middle of the monsoon so no pics, hard to believe that 2 miles from where it had rained everyday for a month, they had a huge forest fire causing mass evacuations.  Luckily we stayed on the wet side..(so wet I thought I had mold on my bum)..I saw the center of varied thrushes in Montana about 50 feet from our tent site at Avalanche Creek.



And we went to Kintla Lake to avoid the rain and the fires, it is gorgeous over there


We did hike the McDonald Creek area a little and saw some birds and scenery:



We also found the usual instructive signs so I wouldn't be run over on any bridge, I like helpful signs


We headed off to Washington state by way of the National Bison Range where we saw Buffalo, antelope and lewis's woodpeckers and Lazuli Buntings.  This is an overlooked spot and is way cool.




After 2 nights at a clothing optional ranch north of Spokane, Silja and I showed up at my birding pal Thor Manson's place in British Columbia.  The intrepid Thor, trying to find us a flamulated owl but they had vacated the nest boxes for the year.




Thor is my hero and I sure wish I had a school principal like him.    I keep telling Thor he is my hero and his wife, Joan, a saint, not sure he believes me or not on this point.  I want to retire and be just like him.  Thor is conservative and liberal at the same time.  He is SO Canadian!  He lives in the gorgeous Okanagon Valley in British Columbia, it seems like the south of France especially with all the wineries, we spent a day drinking..oh I mean tasting.


We are like fish, like fish...guests start to stink after 3 days so being a pike fisherman who stink more quickly than others, we decided we should go ans so we left Thor after 2 days....

We had big plans to see Crow's Nest Pass (Silja was sleeping); Lethbridge AB (I picked up a nail in a tire and got suspicious of Canadian Tire's help......Saskatchewan, more rock art, nobody goes to see


anymore and after too many tire pumping episodes like the one above on dirt roads in southern Alberta, we had to go down to Havre MT to get tire fixed all the while the Havre Tire people cursed the Canucks, "Damn Canucks!"  They'd say as trying to clean up the green goop placed in the tire.  I have already bought extra tires for the big year.

We headed east and I found some good birding spots near Glasgow MT, this McCown's Longspur was a highlight


Then we visited the Petrified Wood Park in Lemmon SD just after we learned poor Lauren was in the ER at camp.....she took ill but despite a car of tears we didn't go get her, she toughed it out




It was a good trip, all in all, I got more pictures than the last trip to Glacier...?


August 4-12 The Guys fishing trip
The trip started typically as a disaster when I was notified by Jeff Rapp the night before that his passport had expired.  Later I noted my truck's drums were shot, and the front end lurched every time I touched the brakes.   But heck we went anyways and Jeff even got his passport despite snafu's.  We had a terrible storm, much worse than last year's when I was stranded on an island with Quakers (not naked Quakers).  This year we watched 2 inch hail and 7 inches of rain in an hour hit the camp from the safety of a cabin.  We caught lots of walleyes despite this and our boat landed 301 pike...yes 301 pike. (last year was 352 pike)  Size was down but I still caught the biggest pike again,  well I tied at 37" but won a share of title for third year in row to win half the pot.  My boat has it now for 7/8 years.  With Greg and I splitting our championships.  Some pictures from Ontario II








Sija floated the grand canyon when I was in Canada with a couple from Virginia we know and had a good time.
I got 2 novels published and out to Amazon this summer after I spent May tracking down the rights to the picture for the cover of Sjofn later on which is below.  This is without a doubt my favorite picture I have seen.  It will grace the cover of Sjofn, the goddess of love.  That novel needs more editing.


The Collective
The Windigo
I'm trying to get all of my books including Sjofn and The Enumerator done by the end of this year so I can worry about the big year only.  
This is not to say anyone will read them but I think they are entertaining and if nothing else, my kids and grandkids can remember me by reading what craziness is in my head.  You know I have written 9 novels and one adventure book and got six of them published and my adventure book.
I was happy to have my daughter proof two of my novels this summer, she is the reading machine.

Tyko and Allwin

Well as I said, Allwin went to Austria and about got deprted for the having the wrong visa but is still doing well, Tyko spent summer being a Swedish language camp counselor in Bemidji MN.  He stayed with grandmother Lucille when we were in Canada and bought a bicycle.

We all were at the cabin Intermittently on Enemy Swim Lake.

I wrote an article for the South Dakota Bird Notes Magazine on Say's Phoebes one evening while watching the sunset, this sunset.......... not sure if it was accepted.

 I have the easternmost breeding population in the US of Say's phoebes
 I tired to make a land deal to enlarge our property but alas no, he wanted more than the value of our cabin and it included just a hill, not even anyadded water access.  One can't have enough property but also owning non-productive property is a money trap
What else did we do...
We added two new paintings to our collection this summer, and one bronze, this Arno Breker bronze is impressive
The two Marcel Rene Herrfeldt oils, I needed to reframe both of them.  I am certainly the largest Herrfeldt collector on this side of the ocean.


By and large though, the art auction scene sucked.
Silja tried her hand at gardening and well, we got a pepper, two watermelons, and lots of tomatoes, now what to do with so many tomatoes.
We visited sisters, buried a brother-in-law, were happy to see my grandmother doing better, went to a naked retirement party, went birding, played a little nude volleyball, had a company golf outing and mostly....mowed the lawn, it was a wet coolish summer and the grass never stopped growing.
I saw my first jackrabbit of the year in August and he looked well fed.
We fixed a roof, drank some good wine, went out to eat with friends, played with the dog, hugged cats, and well hugged our children who are growing up....It was a longer summer than I could imagine, I'm tired just writing about it.  
I was only in 8 states and 3 Canadian provinces, and only two countries but it seemed like we were all over.  Silja had another state to her list, Nevada for nine one more than I did since Memorial Day.  My year bird count is 516 species in ABAdom, which isn't that bad and I could put together a 700 year if I went for it for the next 2 months with all the places I've been this year but a 700 year is not just my goal. 
Oh well....it is over now and here are just the memories.
So what did you do?
Olaf