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The good folks at the Fallon Convention and Tourism Authority extended an invite to 10,000 Birds to send one of us bloggers to the annual birding festival held in this town about an hour east of Reno. Birding Trips' Everyone else is otherwise engaged, or my hand went up first, or both.
I did not actually go to Afghanistan for birding. So, birds in Kabul. I am only including them in this post to give you my real-life Kabul experience … Four species are the most easily seen in the few urban parks (into which women are not actually allowed to enter – I am not sure about female birds).
But here is the truly tragic part: I was not birding during those years! The third weekend of January, I travelled to the coastal city of Acapulco to give a seminar on family finances at a church there. These turkey-sized birds, named for their raucous calls, can muster an impressive level of volume.
Like the recently posted entry on birding Kabul, this isn’t really much of a birding post – it features just two or three really bad (= taken with a mobile phone; = I do not really want these photos to be associated with me as a bird photographer at all bad) photos. Then, lunch break near the river with my hosts.
I remember taking an advanced seminar in plant-animal interaction, in preparation for my own study of human-plant interactions. The first thing I learned was that most animal-plant interaction did not involve mammals, or even birds. We should return to the issue of plant molecules and the good stuff they can do, vis-a-vis birds.
10,000 Birds is running a series of articles by and about tour guides, tour companies, eco-lodges, and other birding travel organizations. We want to help the birding tourism industry come back strong from the COVID pandemic. It also currently works with two other bird and mammal hides in Europe.
I recently participated in an “English Report Writing” training, sponsored of course by my employer, and this post will function as a test to see how well I was focussed on the lecture (instead of the sky outside the seminar room which may hold a black stork any day during spring migration). Well, that was the plan.
Many of those said “Dirt Dwellers” are also birders, who just cannot understand how I go without a backyard or similar area to enjoy the birds that tend to congregate around houses. A couple of weeks ago, I was treated to a visit by juvenile bird that I had never seen before, at least I don’t think I have.
Therefore, I am jumping at every opportunity to explore a new area, and subsequent birds that might be there. My wife and I have had our boat up in that area many times, and I knew that there would be a good shot to add a few new birds from the far northwest end of the US. No matter what, spotting two owls in the same day is awesome!
Besides the presence of several noted birding personalities, interesting seminars and phenomenal prize give-aways, the real stars of the show were undoubtably the birds. There were literally hundreds of kids there on both days, the majority sporting optics and talking birds. Raptors were perceived to be vermin.
I remember going to a health and safety seminar and struggling to identify potential pitfalls. And this cave has lots of nests, so much so that there is a (sustainable) industry in collecting their nests for birds-nest soup. Fogged up as my bins where I managed to see this beautiful little bird.
Bird first, metaphor second. Last semester, while taking a seminar devoted to reading Ulysses , I decided that what the world needed was an index to all the bird references in the works of James Joyce. For instance, despite my well-documented personal admiration for them, many people think that Black Skimmers look goofy.
As the previous two posts, it is light on birds and birding (basically only at the very beginning of this post). It contains a lot of non-bird photos of this area and ends with some description of my reason for traveling to Afghanistan and how you might support the people there. I will be very happy to provide more details.
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