Another Year living in Amerongen's Neighborhood
As has become our habit, we start the year with two Ballard Street offerings that seemed particularly apt during the year. The captions have been modified slightly. If your paper doesn't offer this —the Austin American-Statesman dropped it for some reason — you can read it at http://www.gocomics.com/ballardstreet/.
Meanwhile, the photo shows what we look like in real life, sort of. Now that we are both are officially elderly, that is over the magic age where you qualify for Medicare, we plan to slow down and take it easy… Not!. We have tons of trips planned for 2010, some even to places that other people go to.
Linda's Summary
In a break with tradition, Linda has submitted her own summary of 2009. You can read it here…
April in Paradise
After Ike's devastation of the upper Texas Coast, we decided to capture the beauty of the annual spring migration along the Texas coast in the Rockport area. Together with our friends the Englemans, we hit all the hot spots along the coast. Perhaps the best was at Paradise Pond, which didn't look much like a pond this year, but managed to produce some excellent, close views of warblers in spring plumage.
We also managed to spend some time at the Port Aransas Birding Center, which real birders know as the sewage ponds. (For some reason, sewage ponds are usually great birding spots.) There we had crippling views of several rails, usually shy and hard to see birds. We photographed three different species, of which this picture of the Sora was our favorite.
California Dreaming
With our children and grandchildren living on the Left Coast, we naturally tripped out there several times. We went for Kiera's first birthday in March, accompanied by Granny. We remembered Kai taking his first steps on his first birthday, so we hoped for the same from Kiera. Showing the independent nature that we have learned to expect from her, she adamantly refused. Of course, she started almost as soon as we were back in Texas.
Thanks to the Swine Flu (see below) we also made a trip for Kai's Third, and found that he wasn't walking either! Instead, he ran everywhere. We have lots of pictures of the two of them.
Then we spent a week taking care of the grandkids so Charles and Amy could go scuba diving to celebrate Charles turning 40.
Swine, Where is Thy Flu?
May found us worrying about a planned trip to Mexico to bird the western slopes with our friends the Cloudmans and another couple. The closer we got to the departure date, the more we read about the turmoil in Mexico. Finally, with both the US and Mexican governments urging us to curtail travel, and despite the protestations of our guide Michael Carmody that everything there was fine, we put the trip off for a year.
Left with a two-week hole in our schedule, we opted for a driving trip to California, planning to arrive in time for Kai's birthday. Our route took us through some prime birding hotspots in Arizona, where we managed to pick up three life birds. We stayed at a B&B frequented by birders in Ramsey Canyon near Sierra Vista. Over breakfast on our last morning there, we admitted that our plan for the day included driving as far as Tucson, about an hour away, which was characteristic of much of the trip.
We stopped in Joshua Tree, CA, to visit some old friends Dan and Sona Stork, whom we hadn't seen in years, then, after a quick side trip to Big Morongo, we hopped on the freeway and blasted all the way to Berkeley.
We hadn't done a driving trip in years. It was more fun than we remembered.
Uganda
August found us on a trip to Uganda, where we saw not only the Grey-crowned Crane, surely one of the most beautiful birds in the world, but the famous Mountain Gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The very name of the park is enough to conjure up images in the mind. We've produced a detailed report of the trip, which you can read here…
Williamsburg with the Baker Boys
Once again, we managed to get to the annual Baker Boys Reunion, which was held this May in historic Williamsburg, VA. As always, it was great fun to see old Rice people again, and we were pleased with the reconstructions at Colonial Williamsburg. Jim had been once before, but more than 50 years ago, and it looked different. Come to think of it, so did he.
In addition to the sightseeing, we hooked up with the Williamsburg Bird Club for a Saturday morning field trip, an enjoyable walk in the woods at New Quarter Park. On Sunday, we drove to the Eastern Shore, where we saw many familiar birds and some, such as Northern Bobwhite, that we seldom see any more. Then we ate dinner with Linda's cousin, Billy Sholl, and part of his family in Virginia Beach, before taking an early morning flight back to Austin.
On to 2010
Best wishes for 2010.
Stay in touch. You can always reach us using the feedback form on this website. You can also find us on facebook.