Category Archives: lifers

a blessed day, hot as hell [143 – 173]

Pole on High Island, resplendent in her birder plumage

Today we returned to High Island . . . prepared. The day started out well because we got to check out of the odious La Quinta. We skipped their lousy breakfast, and headed straight to Gander Mountain. Pole wanted to get some of that new-fangled clothing that’s impregnated with bug repellent. They didn’t have it, so instead, we got long-legged, long-sleeved sunblock outfits (UPF 30) that we changed into at the store. Of course, with our sensible pants and shirts, we now looked like the typical dorky birder I ridiculed in yesterday’s post. Pole is particular about how she dresses, and she wasn’t happy about her outfit. And I was kind of disappointed in her, too. The good thing about birding with Pole is that if there are no birds around, I can at least look at her.

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awful, but it’s where the birds are [107 – 142]

Pole in Anahuac (on a tilt, as poles often are)

Last Friday we left for a week-long trip to Texas. We drove Friday night and all of Saturday. Not straight through, mind you. We stopped in Cape Girardeau, Missouri on Friday and made it to Beaumont, Texas last night. So today — Easter Sunday — was our first day birding the Texas coast. And though today was our biggest day ever for birds, it may have been the worst day ever, too.

Starting with the worst, the hotel was a dump. It was old and run down and in the middle of an industrial area right next to the highway. I won’t tell you its name, but let’s just say it was a La Quinta Inn. We knew we were here to bird, so we got over that pretty quick. (Right.) So this morning we headed for the coast down Route 124 toward Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. It wasn’t long before we saw some CATTLE EGRETS in a field along the side of the road. And the a BLACK VULTURE flying above us. Two lifers from the get-go. Then we hit it big.

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chicken nuggets [100 – 105]

The view from my cold plywood cell

We woke up at 3:30 am to watch some chickens. I guess that means we’re officially — I don’t know what — officially bat-shit looney. I’m ambivalent about the whole thing. It was really something to see the GREATER PRAIRIE CHICKEN in action (a lifer for us both) — no doubt about it. But to travel 250 miles, to sleep just three hours in a crummy motel, and to freeze our asses off in the Black Hole of Calcutta, well, that’s a lot for a chicken to ask.

Pole, wrapped to her eyeballs, chicken watches

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LBJs suck major sap [93 – 99]

Today we made our first trip to Northerly Island, which was formerly Miegs Field, Chicago’s lakefront airport. I used to like Miegs because is was fun to watch airplanes landing only a few blocks from a skyscrapered downtown. But Mayor Daley loves his parks, so he used 9-11 as an excuse to plow over the runways and plant this greenery. I don’t want to sound like a nature hater, but I’m a friend to all birds, including the big silver ones. I’m not losing any sleep over it, mind you. My cube faces west so I can’t see the damn lake anyway, and hizzoner has given us another place to bird.

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first hoosier expedition [81 – 92]

Today we made the year’s first trip to Indiana. We went to Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area, which is an old favorite, though we haven’t been there for over a year. It’s a 80-mile drive south of Chicago, through miles and miles of flat cornfields. Very dull. Very Midwest. In the past, we had luck at the area’s Salisbury Rookery, a large marsh that was often full of ducks. But when we drove by today, all the water had gone: the rookery had become a soybean field.

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