Seems Like A Dream, To Good To Be True

In honor of HDT's (Henry David Thoreau) birthday, welcome to Bizzarro Birding Day Y2K9.

It's day two here at the bat job, and things are going pretty good, disregarding the welding problems some of our equipment has. The turbines are terrible and huge (380 feet high!), yet are eerily quiet. The blades are so big and move at such speed that a bird or bat flying next to a moving blade will die.....the pressure change will cause the animals blood vessels to burst!

The project site is located in a mix of grassland and forested areas, and its pretty birdy.....Field, Grasshopper and Vesper Sparrows, Upland Sandpiper (thats a new one!), Indigo Buntings, Scarlet Tanagers, Red-eyed Vireos, Black-throated Blue Warbler, etc. In unrelated news, one person on the crew looks/sounds strikingly like Graham Nathan Lieherly, which I find vaguely disturbing. Who knew he would be roaming the Pennsylvania countryside?

The alcohol situation here is truly strange. You cannot go into a grocery store (the majestically named Giant Eagle, locally) and buy alcohol, of any kind. You can go to a beer distributor and buy a case (which I did today), go to a liquor store to buy wine and liquor, or go into a diner (i.e. Pizza Hut), and get a 6-pack to go. I have my first case of Yuengling chilling in the fridge right now.....it is the cheap local beer I was told to buy. I will give you a review in the near future.

Here are some more pictures from Southeast Arizona, for your viewing pleasure. If you know of any other instance of cross-dressing birdwatchers, please inform me immediately.



The Big Sky over Patagonia's Cottonwood Gallery Forest. Lot's of Summer Tanagers, Vermillion Flycatchers and Yellow-billed Cuckoos in here.



Strelow catches a lightning bolt.



Only someone even nerdier than I may ponder the identity of this species.



A dung beetle, gettin' that shit!



Sunset from the top of Carr Canyon. If you look closely, you can see The Big Brother Balloon that looks out for illegal Mexican traffic.....human and otherwise. Creepy!



After the hummingbird bonanza, a monsoon chased us out of Miller Canyon. Fitting.