Some birders should not botanize.

I'm starting my posts sort of in the middle.  I have to go with what moves me, and I've tried to write a post about ten times.  It's just ridiculous.

So I'm jumping in right on Thursday morning.  It was a good day, because all of the Flock had finally arrived.
Oh, I never did a list of the Flock this year, did I?
Here you go:
Dawn and Jeff 
Nina
Heather
Kathi
Lynne
Moi
Laura
Jay
Doug
Vicki
Diana
Beth G.
Beth R.
Donna
Mary Ann
Debra

SEVENTEEN of us.  Scattered between the Farmhouse, the hotel, a  motor home and two separate cabin rental places.
Most of us were there all week, but we had some stragglers.
Beth R. and Doug came in Wednesday night, so Thursday morning found us Birding by Butt on the Opossum Creek property.  After getting my lifer Black-Billed Cuckoo:



(thank you, Julie!).....the three of us decided to go see this cool flower that Nina had found earlier in the day.
We hadn't even gotten to the top of the driveway before the shenanigans had started.
For the record, I wasn't really sure that Doug knew what he was getting into.  He's a friend of Mary's and has heard all about this festival for years, and while he's a grown man and can take care of himself, I still worried. I mean, the Flock can be pretty raunchy and off-color, if you know what I mean.
Turns out, I didn't have to worry at ALL.  He fits right in.  Beth was slinging jabs at him and he was batting them back at her like a pro.
They actually made me blush a few times, and we all know how impossible that is.

Oh, yeah.  The flower.

So there we are, trudging up the hill to find this tiny yellow flower.  A yellow lady's slipper, to be exact, a small, pretty, native orchid.
I've seen lady's slippers before, but I wasn't sure if Beth or Doug had.  So I tried to describe it.  And unfortunately, I compared it to a scrotum.  Well, you'd have thought the two of them were gonna die.

Now, look at this photo....it does look, well, sack-like, right?




So yeah.  The fact that I said the word "scrotum" was enough to keep them going until we actually found the thing.
A very small, but gorgeous flower.
Then.
One of them (not sure who) said that the curly thingies on the sides looked like peyos (also peyot, payos, payess, peyess) on a Hasidic Jew.
And then it began again.  They lumped it all together and came up with a combination that I am frankly afraid to type.

During the commotion, Beth decided to toss her camera down the hillside.  When we had all wiped our eyes and took some deep breaths, Doug did the chivalrous thing and went in after it.
I really don't remember what he was doing as I took this photo, but I remember laughing hysterically about it. Remember, this was mid-week already.  I was hung over and running on about 3 hours of sleep a night.




And as her camera was being retrieved, Beth got to hold Doug's big huge long lens.
Is it really necessary to add that this sent us around the bend once again?

Ooooh, two-handed hold there, Beth?  Wowsa.