Altitude Sickness. Yep, that's what we will blame it on.

We were way above sea level. It obviously had an adverse affect on us....


Just random things from the Trip that make me giggle out loud, still...two weeks later:

Beth:
Beth is like a Tickle-Me-Elmo. Except you don't have to tickle her to get her to dissolve into tearful laughter. Just look at her. That's all it takes.
I got to go out with her on our last day in the field...and she got me into trouble more than once with the Big, Bad, Scary Trip Leaders. I would just glance her way, and away we would go.
And she has a wicked sense of humor. We get each other, and that alone makes her a priceless friend.

A new saying popped up at the Farmhouse, and I wonder if we can make it a national thing?:
Riding on the van, back from Cranberry Glade (and praying aloud for Geoff Heeter not to drive the van over the side of the mountain), or was it sitting at the kitchen table? I can't remember...
I told a story about a boyfriend who asked me who the "Black Sheep" was in my family. I thought and thought about it, and couldn't come up with anyone...then I realized that the Black Sheep of my family was me. After finishing the story, Jane smiled at me, and said,
"Susan, you need to embrace your Inner Sheep."

We used that all week.


An interlude that I alluded to in some comments a few days ago:
I had too much to drink one night...and I needed to pee. Instead of walking alllll the way to the bathroom inside, I instead asked Lynne and Beth to spot for me as I ambled off into the bushes.
Just as I dropped trou, a car's headlights illuminated me. Lynne and Beth called out, "Car!"
I tried to get farther behind the bush, but with my jeans around my knees, all I could do was stumble further into the RASPBERRY CANES I was trying to pee behind.
(In case you don't know, raspberry canes have like....thorns)
I start yelling "OW! I'm in raspberry canes! OW!!!", peeing all over the place, yelling some more, "OWWWW! OWWWW!", then fell down into the canes "OWWWW!!!!" ...looked around the bush and Lynne and Beth are bent over in the road, hysterical.
Yeah. Thanks guys.

Saturday night, jamming to the Swinging Orangutangs, I heard Mary say that she didn't know how to "shake her shimmy" (i.e. jiggle the "girls", if you know what I'm sayin').
I was feeling loose enough to show her, bending over a bit and "shaking my shimmy"...
not realizing that I was "shaking my shimmy" right in the face of Jeff Gordon's MOM. (She's a lovely woman, by the way)...
I finally realized what I was doing, and I bent down to apologize to her. She said, "Oh, that's okay. I've seen worse."

In case you are thinking about migrating with The Flock next year to the wild, beautiful Heaven that is West Virginia, I warn you...
You will have the time of your life.
You will wet your pants with laughter.
You will see birds everywhere you turn.
You will be treated like family.
You will cry when you have to leave.
You will want to come every year thereafter.















(Photographing the Stone Chicken)

Paco, the Cabana Boy and other people we messed up for Life with our hyena-like yelping.

Opossum Creek Retreat has a very special employee. Whether you need cookies, or toilet paper, or an ice water while soaking in the hot tub...there's just one man to call.

Paco. The Cabana Boy.

When the gals at the Farmhouse ran out of TP, Paco ran out to Wal-Mart and got us some.
A TWENTY-FOUR pack of TP. Thank you, Paco.

When we needed more washcloths, Paco brought a stack of them high enough to make a bed out of. Thank you, Paco.

When Kathi and Kathie were relaxing their Warbler Necks away in the hot tub, Paco was good enough to drape a towel over his arm and hand-deliver some nice, cold bottled water. Thank you, Paco.


We even asked him for foot rubs and to put bubble bath in the hot tub, but I guess everyone has a limit.
Poor man...I wonder if the sight of EIGHT tipsy, giggly female birders begging for massages has scarred him for life? He did sprint to his truck when he left.

Geoff Heeter, give that man a raise.


We were loud and boisterous on this trip.
That's an understatement.
It would start as a simple, innocent statement between say, Mary and Lynne...then someone's exhausted brain would interpret it as something else, and the giggles would begin. Then they would just glance at each other and the van would start rocking back and forth with hyena-like howling and wiping of tears and wheezing for breath.
We got 'shooshed' by the trip leaders more than once. :)~

While driving back from My Perfect Day, Lynne was quiet...and I couldn't shut up.
We rounded a bend near the Farmhouse, and saw a man on a horse, with some dogs standing around. I said to Lynne, and I quote: "Oh, look Lynne! There's a man on a horse!".
And Lynne FREAKIN' LOST IT. I nearly had to carry her in the house, she was so out of her mind with helpless laughter.

Now, WE know that we had the time of our lives. And most people at the festival enjoyed us enjoying ourselves. More than once, people would come up to us at dinner and say, "None of you were on our trip today, and it was SOOOOO BORING! We were with a bunch of Sticks In The Mud!"
I only heard of ONE couple who didn't think too much of us. They didn't like "Those Blogger People". Snort.


Quickie video of Paco and Kathi, out at the hot tub:

Things I learned in West Virginia

Beth did a post here about some things she learned on our jaunt to West Virginia. Got me thinking about what I learned:



1. (I knew this already, but the festival really brought it home for me)
All birders are NOT stodgy, buttoned-up geeks.












(Tim plays the cowbell with the Swinging Orangutangs)












(Mary gets her freak on)



2. Some people can't read.



3. Some birders like to drink. A lot.



Let me add: This was not all of the wine, only about half. This photo was taken in the middle of the week...we had burned through about 27 bottles already.


4. Birders are eco-friendly, and can be trusted to recycle.

Coke, wine and bottled water. Breakfast of Champions.



5. After a long week of heavy birding, some birders can't take it anymore and they snap.

More COWBELL ! ! !

The last night of the festival, we rocked out with the Swinging Orangutangs. Basically unheard of for a birding festival, we were treated to wonderful, loud music, and we reciprocated by getting on our feet and letting our hair down.
The big surprise for us was when Tim was asked to come on up and play the cowbell for a sizzling rendition of "Low Rider"....
I apologize for the low light, but you can make out details when the zillion Flock cameras are going off.
(The hyena-like yelps are the Flock, whooping and hollering for our "Cock of the Flock!")
(I also apologize for the bouncy videography. I think I had four too many beers.)
(In fact, this video is no good. So just sit back and enjoy the COWBELL!)

Introducing Tim, Cowbell-er Deluxe!



Moral to this post...Birders and rock music MIX very WELL!

Give me something I can groove to.....

The Lady in Red

I've gone back and forth about posting this or not. It's about a certain someone I met last week and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
But.
She doesn't read blogs, and I won't be adding any personal information anyway.
There was this woman. She isn't the happiest person in the world. In fact, she just might be the most negative person in the world.
We called her "The Lady in Red".



A good portion of us took two trips with her. We had been warned by others who knew her....but we didn't know just how big of a treat we were in for.

Day One: Jane was bending down trying to get a close up of a plant at the boardwalk at Cranberry Glade, and Lady in Red wanting to get by. She pointed ahead and belched at Mary, "I want to go THERE!" and then lifted her leg and acted like she was going to kick Jane into the bog.
O-kaaay.
Later, she showed off her huge can of Bear Repellent, that also moonlighted as Human Repellent. She then worked into the conversation that she had a "Carry Permit"...as in Carry a Gun.
O-kaaay.....Holy Sh*t.

The next trip we had with her was to Muddlety. This turned out to be my best day, which I will expound on later.
I wanted to take the back seat, to give others a chance to be closer to the doors. (There's a lot of in and out with those vans, so I was really taking one for the team.)
Lady in Red heard me and bellowed, "I HAVE MY STUFF BACK THERE ALREADY!"
I peeked at the back seat. Room for two more people, at least.
O-kaaay. Now she had pissed me off.

So I climbed on back and settled in right next to her.

Hand to God...every single breath out of her was full of negative, nasty, snippy crap.
Now, any other time, I probably would have either a. Shut up tight and hated her silently...
or b. Tell her to go somewhere else and remove the stick from her a**.
This was when something magical happened. I decided that it would be my mission to make this evil, ugly, sorry woman say SOMETHING positive. I would smile. I would joke.
I would turn on the ol' Susan Charm.

I informed everyone else of my plan, whispering that I was gonna make this b*tch smile.

Here's how it went:
Every time she would say something negative, I would catch it, spin it around and send it back to her, charged with positivity.

Lady in Red: This road is too bumpy. I hate this road.
Me: Isn't this fun? We don't have roads like this in Ohio!

Lady in Red: Why are they using those bird calls?! We don't need to hear any more bird songs around here!!
Me: Isn't it neat how Keith used that iPod and brought that Hooded Warbler so close to us????

Lady in Red: (as the sun came out briefly) Well, this sun won't last! It will just heat up the clouds and it will rain again!
Me: All this rain sure makes the mountains beautiful and lush, doesn't it?

And then it happened...
She paused, then said, "You're right. All this rain makes everything so green."
And then. She. SMILED. At. Me.

I smiled back, and glanced at some of the others in the van...winking and mentally high-fiving them.
Gotcha.

P.S.....Mary does a KILLER impression of the Lady in Red. I have video of it.
: )

I LOVE TO DANCE ! ! ! !

I really wanted to have two cameras at the New River Bird and Nature Festival: One for video and one for stills. My camera does both, but sometimes so much was going on, I didn't know where to turn or what to film.

I had my camera set for "video" on the van Tuesday, and caught this little exchange...
(The guy driving is Geoff Heeter. We never knew what was going to come out of his mouth)

Kathi is telling us about a trip leader from another festival who never let anyone stop for
a potty break. If you can't catch all of the dialogue, you may have to watch it more than once.



On Wednesday with the Dream Team, we all did the prerequisite "Life Bird Wiggle", immortalized by BT3. I think we had finally seen the Cerulean Warbler who had been taunting and following us all morning.

Note Keith, (aka "Sad, sad Dope from THIS post) way in the back, who thinks that I am taking still shots, so he just stands there with his arms above his head. See? A dope.

I found my people at New River...and I want them back.

Bird faster....I hear banjo music!

We are back!
When I got back, the kids nearly knocked me over, Geoff looked really tired, the dogs turned themselves inside out and the cats barely looked up.



The next few...oh, years or so...The Flock's blogs will be chock-a-bock full of fun times from our trip to New River Bird and Nature Festival.

I told everyone as they walked out the door (I was last to leave...all alone in the house, pouting like a 5-year old) to have a safe trip home and to BLOG as SOON as they WALKED in their DOORS.
I hope all of our readers can keep up. It's gonna be dirty.

I don't even know where to begin.
The New River Bird and Nature Festival is 6 days of heavy birding. Breakfast is at 6 am, in the vans by 7. You go to your designated area (a different place every day) and bird your butt off.
Trips are over by 2-4 pm, (with lunch in the middle). You then have a few hours to shower, sleep, bird some more....then it's dinner at 6 pm with a presentation afterward.
Just to give you an idea as to the physical damage I am suffering....the last trip on Saturday gave me bruises on the bottom of my feet.
How that happened, I don't know. But it hurts.
But it's also a physical reminder of the absolute freakin' BLAST I had.

I've been to a few birding festivals in my day and I have to say that I haven't seen a better one than this. You are fed way too well, the bird action is hot hot hot, and the guides, drivers and staff are the best.
Maybe we will start in the middle? Maybe with a few of the wonderful people who made this festival so special?

Connie Toops:
Connie is Super Woman. I'm convinced of it.
Retired from a 28-year run with the National Park Service, Connie is a veritable cornucopia of nature lore and has the ears of a bat. (Not literally of course, but I think you know what I mean)
It wasn't all about birds with Connie. Though she bagged plenty of life birds for our group, she was also more than happy to traipse down a slippery, muddy hillside to show us a beautiful trillium or Christmas Fern or weird little fruiting body of a really interesting fungus.


(I wish I had taken more pictures of Connie.)


Add Keith Richardson to the mix, and you have the Dream Team.
(I can't link to Keith's blog, because he doesn't have one. What a sad, sad dope.)


Keith and Connie
My favorite guides at the festival. (I got to go out with them twice!)

Here's how awesome they were....when our spirits were lagging and our raincoats full, they would get out of the van themselves and listen for target birds.

Aren't they CUTE???
(Note: if you cup your ears with your hands and open your mouth, you can hear way better. It's true!)

Keith was instrumental in getting all of us on a lot of birds.
Here, Lynne is all squishy because Keith just got her a lifer. Lynne will have to tell us which one...I could hardly keep track of my own.

Keith was always ready with a grin, played along with the Flock's massive amount of hilarity and came up with a few zingers on his own.
(More on how we infected the Festival with a heavy bolus of new-way-to-perceive-birders on another post)

And was Johnny-On-The-Spot when I wanted to go do something dangerous and fun:
While at Babcock State Park, I was looking out on the roaring waterfall below the grist mill. I wanted desperately to climb out onto the wet boulders to stand over the rush of the river. Keith became aware of my pining and coaxed me into going out there.
He offered to take pictures and told me the official "Red-neck Last Words"...
"Y'all hold my beer while I go try this!"

After a day of rain, the boulders were wet. I was wearing stOOOOpid sneakers, but I threw caution to the wind and ventured out. Some of the wet boulders were ventured on my BUTT.

Sacrificing my only pair of clean jeans to the River Gods.



Finally, out on the edge. And it was worth risking a fall into a rushing waterfall and wet pants. The water was a wall of sound, and the fall of it was a physical manifestation of power.
My heart was a galloping horse.

Please ignore my obvious dishevelment (Hey! It rained all DAY!) and focus on my happiness:


I had lots of moments like this one during the week, which are for another post if I can summon the words.

And speaking of happiness....
Bobolinks have a friend in a local business owner. He waits to mow his hay field so that bobolinks (ground-nesting birds) can raise their family without the worry of being chopped up by a tractor. We were treated to a field of precious bobolinks singing their R2-D2 vocalizations (they DO sound like R2-D2! Really!)

As we left the field, we paused and posed for a group photo.
Look at the happiness.

(photo by Keith Richardson)
One of my favorite photos of the week. See those smiles? Our shoes were soaked and the wind was cold. And we are happy. I'm still soaking in all that joy.

Go tell it on the mountain

The suitcase is packed.
The husband is armed with clean clothes and instructions.
The girls have promised to be good.
The dogs don't know what is going on.
The cats are asleep on the suitcase.

I'm ready.

West Virginia, prepare thyself.

Signs, signs....everywhere are signs...

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring, in case you didn't know that.

The signs have been coming for quite a while....birds more interested in chasing each other than eating, grass starting to look green again.
At RAPTOR, every year about this time, a huge patch of these start to pop up.
Can anyone tell me what they are? The flower hangs from the top of the stem and looks like an upside down trumpet.

Whatever they are, they are just the bluest blue flowers I have ever seen.

In just about a month, a whole passel of bloggers will be converging on West Virginia for the New River Birding and Nature Festival. And we have Kathi to blame for that.
She could be their sole PR staff.

The current list of bloggers who will be whooping it up in the mountains of WV next month:
Kathi*
Kathie*
Nina*
Susan M.
Lynne*
Mary*
Laura*
Moi*
Tim
Jane *
Beth the Delurked Comment Queen
(* staying at the Farmhouse)
Yep, that's 8 women in one house. That house has two bathrooms. We are so toast. Well, at least it has Wi-Fi.

Oh, and Julie, Bill, Liam and Phoebe will be there. And Jim McCormac.
And The Bacon.

I'm looking forward to this trip like no other. It will be a glorious reunion with "old" friends, and a glorious meeting of "old but un-met" friends. And a whole seven days of sweaty, fast and dirty birding!


I was thinking of West Virginia as Lorelei and I were eating at McDonald's today.
And what greeted me from the McNugget box?




A Chicken McNugget. In the shape of WEST VIRGINIA.












Signs. They're everywhere.

Favorite moments

Looking back at last week's Cape May adventure, there are a few special moments that are still jumping into my head:



My first Taylor pork roll...it's a Jersey thing. Laura-The-Local was unable to tell me exactly where the meat comes from, but I tried it anyway...with Laura's recommendation of "salt, pepper, ketchup". She says it's to hide the taste of the meat. Well, then. Why have meat at all?
It was good, by the way. In a preschooler-taste sort of way. Kathi would have loved it. (she has a taste for food similar to a 4 year old)

Lynne, Delia and I went to Sunset Beach to look for Cape May "Diamonds", aka tumbled, clear quartz stones. Sunset Beach is unique in that it faces Delaware Bay and doesn't get the high fierce waves that the other beaches do, presumably.

If my knees could have taken it, I would still be there, digging through the rocks.

We were also on the lookout for all the critters I had found the day before (hermit crabs, etc.)
I still don't have a name for these guys:





This shrimpy-crabby-thing was too cute. So I ate him.

And really, any time I get to spend with Delia is a good time.

I'm very proud of the way she has hit the ground running, kicking a** and taking names. This is her new ride. Suh-weet.

I was thoroughly impressed that Lynne found a stuffed turkey vulture. I think she named it Earl.

Had to do the "bird presentation" pose with the thing...with Delia and Jay helping (love the bunny ears)

That stupid black snake kept us riveted...since there weren't any birds to watch.
In this pic, Jay has just nudged the snake to get its gander up...and Jay looks as if he is about to break into a RiverDance.



(If you are wondering why I am linking the BirdJam website repeatedly...well, Jay informed us that he has a set up with Google (that anyone can get, if they really really want to) that tells them when anyone is linking to BirdJam. Ever Googled your blog? It's amazing where it can pop up. So whenever I mention Jay...or BirdJam...or iPods...or whatever...it's gonna get back to him.

Hi, Jay!!!!! Just holding up my end of the bargain!
(I am so kidding. There was no trading of "goods".)


One of the memories that keeps bubbling to the surface...

I can't believe I am posting this.

At the C-View on Saturday, we all got together to bond, eat and drink. I had made a pledge that I would get a corporate sponsor for my blog and bought a low-cut shirt just for that purpose. It would be my "Sponsorship Shirt".
Since my "girls" are out there enough to knock over nearby lamps, I thought it would be easy. But either everyone was too drunk or my shirt wasn't cut low enough, because I got zero sponsorships.
But I found a new way to use the boobage (must have been the Amaretto Sours talking).

Kathi had brought buckeyes for everyone, perhaps to increase the OSU mojo (nothing says "I care" like a gift of poisonous nut) and my cleavage was a perfect resting place for MY buckeye.


(Self-Edit...Due to the uncomfortable squirming of my husband, I have edited this photo...but I couldn't just take it all the way off the post. It's too funny)
And contrary to others' claims, I did NOT try to crack it.

Oh, yeah....BIRDS.

Well, yeah...we did more than just drop F Bombs all weekend. There was actually some birding going on.
My travel agent found us the sweetest lodging...a condo overlooking a marsh (complete with smell of decaying vegatation). Mornings were especially fabulous, with fallouts rummaging the phragmites right below the back deck.
Ever seen a yellow-rumped warbler from above? I hadn't.



Kathi was good enough to point out a lifer for me...a juvenile black-crowned night heron:


The Saturday morning banding demo produced a very angry male Cooper's Hawk:

...being held by a fellow blogger:

That's John from A DC Birding Blog. A very quiet but well-spoken guy. I really pay attention to banding demos and other people discussing raptors. I might pick up some new info.


On the eco-boat trip, I got more lifers:

Brant. A very cute little sea goose. They were hard to miss....like only about 100 of them floating on their own raft of goose-ness.


Fish crow...another lifer.

This one's for my father-in-law, Swami, because he seems to have no idea what a loon looks like:

A common loon. Not a lifer, but the best look I have had yet. Every time I look at this photo, I think, "...and a one...and a two..."

A sight you don't see every day....a peregrine falcon sitting on an osprey nest:

That was a highlight of the boat trip...then we got more PEFA:

Two of them sitting on a water tower.

I had been bitching and whining about "I wanna see oystercatchers!" at the bar the night before, and Beth-The-Lurker (Hi, Beth! Now you have to comment!) said I should see some on the boat trip.
We didn't see one....we saw two dozen.

A weirdly fascinating bird. A huge straight reddish-orange bill and crazy yellow/orange eyes. Click HERE for a good view of one.

All in all, I got 66 bird species at Cape May with five lifers:
American Oystercatcher
Black-crowned Night Heron
American Black-bellied Plover
Brant
Fish Crow

Not bad for only birding about 20 percent of the trip.
: )
Tomorrow, a post about my oldest child and her seventh birthday!

We try to be good birders...but just can't help ourselves.

What's that smell? (The Official New Jersey State Motto)

There are many things I have learned over the past weekend:



1. A Subaru is capable of holding 27, 567 of Kathi's bags.
(For the record, I had one suitcase and one beading bag. The rest of this hot mess belongs to Kathi.)



2. Birders have very strange mating rituals.


3. Bird Bloggers will take a picture of anything....including you taking a picture of them.




4. Bird Bloggers will point at imaginary birds if you point your camera at them.




5. There are people out there who will be thrilled to see a Black Vulture and do the Life Bird Dance because of it.


6. There is a company out there who makes Turkey Vulture stuffed animals.
(Three guesses as to who bought this...thing.)



7. Juvenile Black Skimmers will idly play with sticks.


8. It's fun to watch a Minnesotan dip her toes in the Atlantic for the first time.
(Yes, she is saying, "Brrrrrrr!")


>Friends are beautiful.


10. Bar tabs can be very large in New Jersey.

11. If you say the word "groupies" while on an Owl Walk, it will sound like "Herpes" and everyone in the group will stop in their tracks immediately.

12. Southern New Jersey smells weird. Laura says it's all the marshes, but I have to wonder.