Thursday, May 20, 2010

Aeroplane, Aeroplane, Don't Leave Without Me

It seems the time has come. 

Fiends, friends, strangers.  I must shutter the doors of BB&B for a while.  This is the first time I've ever had to do this, but drastic birding calls for drastic measures (no phone, no internet, no booze, etc.).  As you already know I will be spending my summer on Buldir Island, in the western Aleutians off Alaska, with 4 other people and a couple of birds.  We'll be doing things pretty low-tech, which means no blogging...which is ultimately best for everyone.  Actually, by the time you read this I'll probably be on Adak Island or maybe even on Buldir itself.  It is unlikely that I will be able to post anything resembling a blog until September, so I am going to call it off.  So from the staff here at BB&B headquarters, The Human Birdwatcher Project, and on behalf of The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive, I wish you fair winds and following seas until September rolls around.  Please check back in back then....and if you don't see anything.....I probably met my fate at the bottom of a cliff, crumpled in a heap of auklet poo.  Please don't let anyone play bad music at my funeral.  If possible, some sort of Sky Burial (where your body is left to vultures) would be nice.  Maybe drop me in the home range of some California Condors?  That would be a good way to go.

I was planning on throwing up another fat clutch of pictures from my time in Arizona, which seems like a fitting thing to go out on....but no time, no time.  I think my year list is somewhere at 320 right now, which pales in comparison to lists that people like Dan "Cockblocker" Maxwell and Cass "Long Term Relationship" Grattan, but I'm pretty pleased with it.  The last bird that got added in AZ was a female Berylline Hummingbird in Miller Canyon, a former nemesis bird which haunted me for many years, up until last years Monsoon Reun(ion).  We apparently get along quite well now, and it wouldn't be odd if it was one of the same birds I saw there last year.  Up here in scenic Homer (holy SHIT is it scenic), I've met up with a few birds I haven't seen in a while, but the hordes of Northwestern Crows that call this area home have been the most interesting thing so far.  They look like little runty mini-crows.

With sincerity, I would like to thank the modest number of people who actually read this shit on the regular, who consider birds to be something worth considering, who have (inexplicably) complemented my writing, who want to maintain faraway friendships, who can nerd/geek out on birds, and who can understand my bizarre lifestyle and absurd sense of my humor.  Ya'll are why I even bother coming back to civilization at all.  So have a positive summer....see some punk rock shows, drink some whisky, get out of the city and don't forget to look Up.  Selah.

Love,

Seagull Steve

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