A day surrounded by birders

I love my job. Period.

Today, I presented at a local Wild Birds Unlimited, in my Dad's old neighborhood. My Mom surprised me by stopping by to see her baby girl do her thing and brought along friends of my parents' who have known me since the diaper days.

I gotta tell ya...I really felt like an educator this weekend. Yesterday, there were a few kids in the classes that I could tell had the spark. They were asking intelligent questions, really listening to what I was saying. It felt good. And today, there were a lot of kids-of-birders at the presentations with cool stories about raptors they had seen and could actually ID. This is the new generation of birders, the young whippersnappers who will be picking up where we leave off, writing the bird books and leading the walks.

What a nice store: It was crammed floor to ceiling with bird stuff, jewelry, books...

Who says birders can't have a sense of humor? The store rented this bald eagle costume and had a nice young lad wave at traffic streaming by.

And I couldn't resist getting a photo of us for the BLOG. It's always about the blog.

A lone killdeer

Took the girls to Lake Isabella for a chilly dinner and a frolic in the huge, crispy sycamore leaves.

Huge flocks of starlings went over us at the park. Each group seemed to take minutes to get by us. It was cool, even if they are only starlings. They're loud, too.

My all time worst bird photo. There were warblers all around us as we ate dinner, and they all seemd to be the same species. As far as I can tell, they were Cape Mays. But fall warblers give me a twitch in my face. I am so unfamiliar with warblers, only really seeing them once a year up at Crane Creek, I really need the old field guide to figure them out. Now, raptors? Not a problem.