The Voice

I could have put a million images into this movie, but the song is only so long....

And I can never adequately express what this festival means to me.  Or what these people mean to me.

You Verklempt me.

More from the New River Birding and Nature Festival!!!

Remember the last scene in Jerry McGuire?

"You.....complete....me."

If you don't remember it, just think back to before Tom Cruise went bat-shit crazy permanently.

Well, it's a good segue into my post tonight.

Muddlety Magic:
So, Saturday of the festival was Muddlety, my absolute favorite trip of all.  For a refresher on my first day at Muddlety back in 2009, go here.  Seriously.  Go read that post.  You'll understand the title of this post better.




This time around, we got Julie as our guide (plus Rudy, who comes up in a later post) and Geoff Heeter. Click here for an interview with Geoff.

The weather was fantastic.  The group was fantastic.  The guides were fantastic.  The birds were fantastic.
I guess you can see a theme here, right?
Blah blah blah.
It's hard sometimes to really convey the wonderment of this place.  It's not only birdy, it's also full of butterflies and very cool flora, and if you're lucky you might get a bear.  Bear.  BEar.  BEAr.  BEAR!!
:)


I was yet again verklempt.  Choked with emotion, holding back tears all day.  This special place just rips me apart on the inside, and as it goes through me, sews me up again into something new.
I warned Beth R. that I would be a mess, and she warned me that she would be a mess.
And she gave the quote of the day:  "YOU VERKLEMPT ME."



Let's run through some photos.  And you may notice a lack of bird photos.  Well, I'm still working on my new camera.  There are too many settings.  And the camera has a higher IQ than I do.




We couldn't have asked for a better day.



Geoff Heeter, our host with the most.
(This is his Serious Birder face.  I was so shocked to see him actually being serious, I had to get a photo of it)



Rudy, who is nearly 7 feet tall, avoids Warbler Neck all together by just laying down....



Nina, down alongside the road, as usual.  :)



Beth G., with a big bus and a big lens.



I like lichen.




Can't remember which Azure this is....





Beth Russell has spent five years trying to get a look at a Cerulean Warbler.  Here, Julie is trying to call one in....
And finally, down the road.....we got it.

When we got back on the bus, I made Beth do the Life Bird Wiggle, which she did...with some extra "White Girl From Philly" Flare:






We flushed a turkey from her nest along a hill side, so Doug and Julie hopped up the rocks to take photos of the thirteen eggs, well hidden in the brush.




Where lunch is served.




British Soldier Lichen (and a bit of deer fur stuck to it)



Everyone jumped out of the bus to take photos of this...a pile of coyote scat covered in butterflies.
If you don't know about why butterflies do this...the males need certain minerals to complete their reproduction cycles, and this is why you will find hordes of them at puddles of mud and piles of poop.


Slow motion video of the butterflies getting their tasty on:



The largest Tulip Popular tree in West Virginia:

Geoff loves this tree.



Laura loves this tree.



I love this tree.
We all love this tree.

I love this place.

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.

New River 2011 People pix

So it's begun...the New River Bird and Nature Festival.  It's only day one, so we don't have a bounty of hilarious stories and photos yet.

It's been a long day, so for tonight I'm going to just show some people photos, so you all can see who's here:
(I don't have photos of everyone yet....and some of the ones I do will get me in trouble)

Laura:





Dawn:





Nina and Lynne:
(I don't remember what was going on. But I bet it was hilarious)



Sigh....Mary Ann and Debra.



First night together....a toast to the Flock and to nature blogs!


More to come....much, much more.  We haven't even STARTED.......

Bird. Drink. Eat. Laugh. Drink. Repeat

This is my third attempt at a post.  The first two times, I was trying too hard and it came out stiff and unnatural.  And boring.

Spring is here.  Time to talk about the New River Bird and Nature Festival, and all that comes with it.  I could write in a professional and solemn style, but who are we kidding here?

Sure, it's about the birds.  Glorious warblers and thrushes and sparrows and some raptors thrown in and so many others.  Lots of birds.  LOTS.

Sure, it's about the guides.  World-class guides.  Both "big" names and local experts.

Sure, it's about the food.  Hot breakfasts packed with protein (BACON!), spectacular dinners, cold but yummy lunches perched on a rock in the middle of nowhere.  All of it is good.

But what's the real reason I go to this festival every year?  What's the cherry on this fantastic sundae?

The Flock.  (Click HERE to read about The Flock)

Though the beginning of The Flock was on the shores of New Jersey back in 2007, the ball really started rolling in 2009 when we all signed up for our first New River festival.  Stayed at the Farmhouse, keeping late hours and peeing in raspberry canes.  Gossiping into the cold night air on the front porch swing with Laura.

And this year, the group grows more.  It's going to be insane fun, even more laughter, even more people to love.  Hear that fizzing sound?  That's the promoters taking lots of Alka-Seltzer.

There's so much that I have written about this festival.   So if you want the real dope, go to this list of NRBNF posts.  And if you want to join us this year, it's not too late.  There are, as of right NOW, five spots left for each trip.  And lodging options are still open....a few, anyway.

I am packing Poise this time.

A list of words from The Flock

I've been doing some poking around in the house lately and today I came across a sheet of paper I thought I had lost.  It's three lists from my glorious friends, The Flock.

It's divided into three sections:
"What Susan was called this week"
"Things we called Debbie"
"Flock Dictionary"

These lists were written on the back of a note from Geoff Heeter, welcoming us to the 2010 New River Bird and Nature Festival and telling everyone else that I ate all the cookies.

Note:  Sure, the festival was months ago and I'm still blogging about it.  But very little fun excitement is going on in my life right now, so just deal with it.  :)


In case you can't read his chicken scratch:
"The Flock- Hello and Welcome!
The glasses and key chain lights are for you.
Susan ate your cookies.
Enjoy the chips and salsa!
Geoff"

I did not eat all the cookies.


On the flip side of this note is a mish-mash of drunken scribbling.




Let's break it down:
The left side is a list of things that I was called over the course of the week (If anyone remembers any especially fun side stories about these, please SHARE THEM):

Bitchy (As in Vickie saying to me the first day, "We need to get you some food.  You're kinda bitchy."
Liar  (??)
Pop 'N' Fresh  (Was this a boob thing?)
Puff 'N' Stuff  (Was this also a boob thing?)
Pillsbury Doughboy  (Because of the way I laugh)
Nasty  (I assume I was hungry)
Grumpy (Ditto)
Smart ass  (Well, what did you expect?)
Sweet  (The Petersons wrote this!)
Considerate  (This too!)
Randy  (???)
Buzzmeister/Buzzamatrix  (Julie called me that....because I broadcast to the world about this festival)
Testes  (Um....)
Profanity Barbie  (snort)




The right side of the paper lists all the different Barbies we could turn Debbie into:

Adventure Barbie  (She's ready for adventure, any time and any place!)
Helpful Barbie  (Self-explanatory)
Clumsy Barbie  (Girlfriend falls.  A LOT)
Guest Service Barbie  (Same as "Helpful Barbie")
Pirate Barbie  (She stood up on a road rail at Cranberry Bog and scared the shit out of me, and then posed like a pirate.  Argggh.)
GRAVITY Barbie  (Just like "Clumsy Barbie".  She took a spill on one of the trips that will assuredly be talked about for years to come.)
Defroster Barbie  (One of the mornings, there was frost on our car windows.  Sweet Debbie scraped ALL of them.)
S & M Barbie  (I don't know.  And I don't want to hear about it.)

The bottom list really got me cackling, because there are a few that I just don't remember writing down, even though it's in my handwriting.  My drunken handwriting...maybe that explains it.
The Flock Dictionary:

Newbology
Dickishness
Spraint
Queasiology
Squeeziology
Peeliated
Disco w/ monkeys
Blow in a circle

Now, "Spraint" I remember.  I may have to let the other Flock members refresh my memory about the rest of those.  "Disco w/monkeys"?????  "Blow in a circle"?????????

NRBNF Life Bird Dances

Just good people

I like people. Most of 'em, anyway.

There have been plenty of situations in my life, when I lay eyes on someone, and just know that we are going to work out just fine.
(This never really worked with any of my past boyfriends. Lust is blind, I guess.)


Most of my relationships of late (five years, since my blog reared its ugly head) have begun in cyberspace and then bloomed into an all-encompassing bouquet of friends that honestly, I don't know what I would do without. It's a rare thing to meet people the old-fashioned way.

Thank goodness I still know how to do it.

This Spring, at the New River Birding and Nature Festival I got to meet and spend time with a couple that I didn't actually know through this tiny computer monitor. Imagine.



Meet Larry and Diana:


This is exactly where I met them, while Diana was holding a just-banded titmouse and said titmouse was biting the hell out of her finger.




I set my camera to "Burst" mode and got a series of the titmouse bursting from Diana's hand. The best one, however, was the one that shows the titmouse flying right in front of Larry's face:

I laughed out loud when I previewed the photos, and went over to Larry and Diana to show the best one.
Just look how happy Larry is!

This was the first birding festival they had attended, and I assured them that they picked THE BEST ONE to start with.

Over the course of the week, I got to know them better and it was interesting how many things we had in common:
They live in my home state (Indiana), Larry is a Mason (so were most of the men in my family), they are both in Eastern Star (like my mother), and Larry's been known to hunt a deer or two
(I was raised on venison!).
And they're just good people.
It was like being with family members.
(I'm trying to put together a video of some of the participants' Life Bird dances, and there's a super cute one of Larry after he got...ummm...a Cerulean I think?)

I sort of adopted them, and as the festival ended, we exchanged email addresses and heartfelt wishes that we will see each other again next year.
I hope they return...we have more Life Bird Wiggles to do!

Zip it....zip it good!

Even while having the time of your life at the New River Birding and Nature Festival, it can happen. Bird-Burn-Out (or BBO).

Bird songs, birdjams, (Hi, Jay!) bird photos, birds birds birds. There is a point that I think many people reach at this festival, where they just have sensory overload and can't handle any more birds.

The promoters realize this, and one of the ways they have chosen to deal with BBO is to offer some unconventional trips that aren't really about the birds, like Birding by Boat, a gentle float trip down the New River (that's for another post).

Another way, and frankly a zippy way, to deal with it is the Canopy Tour, aka "the Zipline".
This was offered on two different days of the festival at two separate companies.
(Ours was Ace Adventure Resort)


I was digging the idea of flying through the trees yelling like a kamikaze, so I signed up.
Nina also signed up, but was on another trip. Here's our adorable Nina, getting suited up and ready to zip:


(Photo by Geoff Heeter)

I was pleasantly surprised that only four women, including me, had signed up for this day of zipping. I was the youngest of the four...that rocks.
We did some low-impact birding before suiting up.
Jeff Gordon acted like a very sexy female turkey and called in not only a male turkey, but a red-shouldered hawk:




Yes. That's JEFF making that sexy turkey noise.




Devo makes a comeback.
(Photo by Geoff Heeter)



Why we look like we don't want to touch each other, I don't know.
I'm usually all over Jeff like a bad suit.
(Photo by Geoff Heeter)



The very competent young woman who was our leader made me feel quite safe.
And she reminded the men, as they geared up in their harnesses, "Make sure all of the furniture is in the same room."
Ahem~


"Jeff and Geoff, is all of your furniture in the same room?"


I am usually happy to not be a man, but this day, I was especially thankful.
Even without "furniture", that harness really should have bought me dinner first.

My bra did end up around my neck.


It was so fun, zipping from platform to platform, and platform up to tree, across ravines...
Since this was a free-style zip, your momentum usually makes you spin around a few times.


Here's a quick video of one of my zips, when I don't quite take off hard enough to reach the platform, necessitating pulling myself hand over hand on the safety line, hence the silly cackling at the end of the video.

(This video achieved by turning the camera on right before I zip,
and balancing said camera on my right boob):


The women were great...and the one that I will remember for the rest of my life was Dot.
Dot is a 70-something grandmother who, as she did the last and most terrifying zip (where instead of running off a platform, you scooted off on your rear end and basically did a free fall) went flying through the air yelling "Whoop! WHOOP! WHOOP!".

She had a plan for the photos that were taking of her zips.
"I'm giving them to my grandbabies, so when their friends show off pictures of their grandmas in a rocking chair on the porch, my grandbabies can show a picture of their grandma ziplining."
That's just awesome.


Here's Dot, on her Blackberry, no less:






And in conclusion, Jeff Gordon: KAMAKAZE:

Keeping up with the Peterson's

At a point right before the New River Birding and Nature Festival, I realized that of the seven other people staying at the Farmhouse, I had never met ANY of them in person.
This wasn't a totally new concept for me...jetting around the country meeting strangers is old hat.
A few of the people sleeping under the same roof, I hadn't even spoken to over email. And one of them was a MAN.

Murr: "Hey! Can my friend Linda come along?"
Me: "Sure! The more the merrier!"
Molly: "Hey! Can my friends Lee and Courtney come along?"
Me: "Sure! The more the merrier!"
Everyone seemed to be coming in on a different day, and even that changed daily.

As they drifted in, I did my best to be a good host (since I was the nut who implored them to attend this festival in the first place).
I had no preconceived notions of anyone, so it was nice to meet each new face.

Some of us liked each other so completely and so quickly, we began to use each others mannerisms:

(Photo by Mary Ferracci)

Lee and Courtney Peterson arrived, and I adored them immediately.

(I'm going to let you click on their links so you can appreciate the shock I had when I found out who they were. )



Famous surnames didn't matter around the kitchen table and we found other things to discuss.
We didn't make a big deal out of them, they were just another couple of birders who found themselves staying in a house on a hillside in West Virginia.

Though they were only able to stay for a few days of the festival, it was a pleasure to extend that famous Flock hospitality to such nice people. I think they had a fine time, and I'm sure they were happy to attend a festival just for the birds.

Lee and Courtney, we were thrilled to have you...and hope to see you again soon!

We put the "ha" in Kanawha

"What trip are you going on today?"
"Kanhaw....Kanawawa...Kan...awww, dammit, the Falls trip."

I was never sure how to pronounce it (I heard someone call it "Kanaw" so I'm sticking with that) but Kanawha Falls is a trip to take if you decide to take the plunge and go to the New River Birding and Nature Festival.

If we rewind to last year's festival: The "Birding by Boat" trip was called off because of some sissy thunderstorm warning, so at the last minute the guides threw together a trip right off the cuff.
To Kanawha Falls. And I hear it was glorious.


I missed this trip last year because Laura kept me up until 1 am, jawing on the front porch, and then I was too wired to sleep until about 4, so when Nina gently said at 5 a.m., "Susan? Are you getting up?" I whispered, "I got an hour's sleep. And I'm hungover. And I can't move. Leave me behind."

And they ended up having a great time and I was jealous.

It went so well last year, the promoters added it as a real trip this time around.
Kanawha Falls is located at the town of Gauley Bridge and is a tributary of the Ohio River. And it really reminded me of the Ohio...wide and flat. Well, until you get to the waterfall.



It's a constant roar in the background that you can't ignore, no matter how hard you strain to hear the birds overhead.

This was my best day of the trip. Very close to being a "verklempt" sort of day.
Long-time readers of this blog might remember how enamored I was of the Dream Team from last year. Well, they are still just great, but Wil and Paul are my new favorites. Sorry, Paco. You've been replaced. My birding heart is a fickle thing.



It was fine that we got to experience the fiery orange of a Hoary Puccoon*:


*That is my new swear word. "Dat beotch ain't nuthin' but a hoary puccoon."

It was nice to finally get a decent, albeit backlit look at a warbling vireo.

Shot with my mad digi-scoping skills. Yeah.


And the hooded warbler was fun to watch, right out in the open.


We've decided that "Hooded" isn't a good enough name for this warbler. We are going to petition to change the name to "Balaclava Warbler". And of course they will listen to us.


The immature bald eagle was cool, even if it was a mile up.




The tiny town surrounding the falls was quiet except for a barooing hound dog.
The post office doesn't look like it gets much mail anymore.



There was a bus. On a rock. In the river.




I laughed out loud as Larry (more about him in another post) helped the bus driver fix the bus.



My breath was swept away by Cathedral Falls.

I hear we are lucky that it had rained the day before, because the water isn't usually a big deal.

So all these things were nice. And I'm laying the credit at the feet of Wil Hershberger and Paul Shaw. (Paul doesn't have a blog, that I know of. I don't think he's even on Facebook. Dude is really UN-connected. And since he doesn't have a blog, that makes him yet another poor dope.)
;)


They worked really well together. Wil always with a smile when one of us (me) asked a stupid question. In fact, I came to Wil whenever I had a question about anything, just to watch him be oh-so-polite and charming.


And Paul worked hard to show us a good time.



Can't see the bird? Well, Paul will get up behind you and make sure to get you on the bird.



And they were such good sports, even with Vickie and me on the trip. I was a bit of a pest, and some of my behavior started to rub off on Vickie. I'm so sorry, Vickie.

The two climaxes of the day:
1. Finally, a GOOD look at a Cerulean Warbler.

The darling little guy bounced right down the tree just as Wil said he would, as if Wil had him on a string. Not a life bird, but definitely a life LOOK.

Climax number 2:
On a hillside lush with rhododendrons, a SWAINSON'S Warbler sat out in the open. For five minutes.

Usually an extremely difficult bird to see, this one was maybe dazed from migration, because it. Just. Sat. There.

Both Wil and Paul got big squeezy hugs for those two birds. Ossum.


And birding aside, I got to enjoy a little silliness with Paul.
The bus was loaded and waiting for us.
We looked at the swing set with longing, then looked at each other.

"Let's SWING!"
And so we did.


Thanks, guys. A great day with a couple of great guides.