Ranger at Large!

• Birding without bins, Chimney Swifts and Baseball - Monday 29 June 2009

You can pretty much bird anywhere, except maybe on the moon and this last couple of weekends I experienced what it's like to be a birder not birding. On Father's Day, David (my father-in-law) and I went fishing up the St Marks river. We got one small Largemouth Bass between us! We are such great anglers...J.R Hartley eat your heart out. Anyway I left the bins at home...on purpose but still had a great time birding! It is possible to bird without optics. In a 3 mile stretch of the river I heard 4 Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a Least Bittern, Acadian Flycatchers, Great Crested Flycatchers, Summer Tanagers, White-eyed and Red-eyed Vireos, Hooded and Prothonotary Warblers, Northern Parula and many other typical woodland birds. I also had both kites, Broad-winged and Red-shouldered Hawk. I reckon we had almost 50 species...without optics. Try it, it's fun and tests how good you are birding by ear . This last weekend we took a family trip to Atlanta. I had tickets to go watch the sox play the braves so when in Rome....we went to the World's largest aquarium and took the baby to a kid's museum. The game was a close one, Mark Kotsay drove in Kevin Youkilis for the games only run giving the Red Sox the win. Yay! During the game I enjoyed watching a dozen or so Chimney Swifts flying around above the upper deck where I was sitting. The 40,000+ fans were probably oblivious to them as they zipped around catching their food. Pretty cool to watch. The Georgia Aquarium is truly awesome and is home to hundreds of marine species from all over the world including 3 Beluga Whales and 3 Whale Sharks. My personal favorite though was the Lion Fish.

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