Friday, September 25, 2009

License Plates of the MBS...

"EVL TWN!" Everybody has one...where's yours?

You can tell you're running low on blog material when you resort to anything that comes even a little close to birding!

You can click on the photos to enlarge them for easier reading, or you can just close out of the blog and wait for something better. Ha. This is what happens when one(that would mean ME!) is in a silly mood. Yep, I'm sitting here just cracking myself up...and deleting the captions so as not to offend anyone, living or dead, past or present, in this or any other dimension that you may inhabit or believe in.

I'm really looking forward to "Themeless Thunday" thith week...

"EYRIE" The Lake that was so scary they called it "ERIE!" Coming soon to a theatre near you!
That's a local joke, sorry...

"EIDERS" *joke deleted for your protection.

"SHOVLR" Hmmm, gravedigger, gardener or a simply duckie gal?

"BIRDING" Bird Girl, you need to wash your car...
I had to edit the writing in the back window, oops.

HEY!!! TURN AROUND!!
The WRBLRZ behind you!
Silly birders...who's car is that anyway?

You didn't think I would do a whole, entire, complete, exclusive, comprehensive and nearly perfect bloggy without one bird photo did you?
It would have been a total butt shot, but he peeked!
Name that Empidonax...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Sailing the bounding main...

...Or something similar to that!

On the first evening of the Midwest Birding Symposium, a little over two hundred of the over eight hundred birders registered went on a boat ride out to the Lake Erie islands and back. We all had high hopes to see some of the many migrating birds winging across the lake, maybe have one land aboard ship for a photo op! And most of all, we hoped for a calm lake...sea sickness...bad...very bad.

Lake Erie has a reputation for getting very rough very quickly, as it is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. The temperature was great, the winds were calm, but the birds were scarce. They need the winds to bring them across the lake to our shore. In any case, we all had a great time!

Me and the Doodles were running late, go figure, and we didn't have time for dinner. To our surprise, there was a buffet on board! The evening was spent socializing, birding and sight seeing.

This is the Goodtime I, good name! That's Ernie and Rondeau Ric waving.

Our hostess with the mostess, Cheryl Harner, aka Weedpicker.

One of the beautiful islands of Lake Erie.

Shipboard birding...looking for something other than a Ring-billed Gull.

Oh my gosh! A Ring-billed Gull! Cover your head...

Chumming for...uh...Ring-billed Gulls with popcorn, yep, popcorn.
What would you use?

We have a large entourage of, you guessed it, Ring-billed Gulls.
Apparently popcorn is one of their favorite foods...

And on your starboard side...a Ring-billed Gull.

Name that bird!

Here's an odd sunset...Ring-billed Gulls of course and the smoking tower in the distance?
Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, just down the road from the BirdMobile.
BOOM!

Monday, September 21, 2009

The Nature of MBS...

This Caspian Tern, the mascot of the Midwest Birding Symposium, was zooming along the Lake Erie shore.

I can't believe it's over. What a great event we had...outstanding speakers and over 800 bird-brained folks wandering around! I'll have to post the faces of MBS when we get back home, and to reality...ick.

In the meantime, here's a few of my favorite non-human photos from this weekend. We are so lucky to live in an area with such a diversity of wildlife to view, and even a few birds now and then!
A Cabbage White Butterfly lookin' good.

Here's a Blue-headed Vireo sitting still for almost two seconds!
Boing...and he's gone again...

I forgot my dragonfly book again...duh.

Who's the cute little Muskrat?
He was busy chowing down and didn't care that we were watching him.

"Yeah, so like I was sayin'...along comes this spider and sits down beside her..."
Grasshoppers like to tell stories, really, listen someday.

Peek-a-boo! I think I see a Swainson's Thrush hiding in there!

I apologize for any arachnophobics out there, but this funnel spider was cool to watch going in and out of his sticky web.

Yep, the Bowfin fish still hasn't moved...I don't think he's feeling well...

Isn't he a cutie!
The Doodles says he's a Philadelphia Vireo because he's cuter than the Red-eyed Vireo. And that's how we ID birds around here...
very technical...

You have to have a 'Bird from Behind' before I go!