Midwest Birding Symposium-Come With Me!

The Midwest Birding Symposium is almost here! In 34 days, close to a thousand birdwatchers will flutter down upon Lakeside, an idyllic resort on the shore of Lake Erie. It's coming. People are signing up like crazy. I would like you to consider joining the flock. So I shall seduce you with flowers, beautiful architecture, scintillating talks, groovy field trips and a certain charismatic Boston terrier.

This is my favorite birding event aside from the Big Sit, and for many of the same reasons. Most of all, I love seeing so many wonderful people, greeting and yakking with them at my booth. Lakeside is like this big beautiful Victorian summer camp, and seeing groups of birders sauntering through its quaint streets makes me happy. They're going from talk to talk.

About those talks. I sat down to make a list of the speakers I wanted to hear. I got a piece of paper, went to the Speakers link on Midwestbirding.org
and started writing. About halfway through, I started to chuckle, because I'd written every single one down as a can't-miss.

Last year I gave my talk in Orchestra Hall, with its lovely acoustics and intimate atmosphere. Perfect. But a tad small. We don't want to make anyone stand up.

This year, I'll face the cavernous expanse of historic Hoover Auditorium, along with a roster of wonderful speakers. I'm Al Batt's warmup act on Saturday night.

 

Imagine this place packed full of birders. Scary! Fun!  As it happens, Hoover's where I'll have my art booth. So I'll get to hear a bunch of awesome talks, and I'll get to see practically everybody as they come through. Yay! Come and say hi! Remember to blurt "BLOG!" if that's how we know each other. People won't look at you funny.

It's time to pack up the booth. I enjoy the challenge of using my Poor Man's Pickup, the cargo carrier I bought to haul Extra Stuff. Usually that means bales of straw or lots of bungeed garbage cans, but sometimes it means Fine Art.

 

 Many bungee cords, some strapdowns, some tarps and yes, some duct tape will be deployed.

Here's hoping for the same perfect winey-sweet September weather we enjoyed in 2009.

I'll have limited-edition prints and original paintings like this one from my upcoming book.

 

  It's called The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds.

It's due out in early spring 2012. 80,000 words and 320 brand-new color and pencil illustrations...it's been a thing. But it's done now and just about to go to press, and I cannot wait to hold it in my hands. 

I'll be taking the first pre-orders at this Symposium. If you pre-order The Bluebird Effect here, you'll get it before anyone else, and I'll be more than happy to sign it and personalize it as you request.

But enough of my yakkin'. Let me show you Lakeside as I know it and love it.

 

There's a lovely walking path that runs along Erie's shore, past gorgeous homes and luscious gardens.

 

 I walk and gaze and fantasize that Bill and I are sitting in those chairs, sharing a julep as we gaze out on the lake. But of course there would be many more dandelions in our lawn.

  

 There are almost no cars to worry about, just golf carts and bicycles, so you can walk anywhere. 

There are big green spaces with tantalizing squirtles.

We'll be bunking at the Hotel Lakeside, which I understand is full up right now. Liam is spooked by the ghosts that are said to walk its halls, but they're mostly just playing dressup with the sheets.

 

Both kids are hugely looking forward to it. Phoebe loves the architecture and the freedom of riding bikes anywhere she and Liam want to go.

 

Chet Baker loves the place, too. And he'll be with us, so this may be your chance to get your kiss from a very down-to-earth canine cyberstar.

 

As you can see, my Crazy Dog Lady priorities are in order. Chet first, kids second.

We'll all be signing our books, even Phoebe and Liam, who helped Daddy write and design the

Young Birder's Guide.

 2009's Authors' Event was really fun. Here's Lang Elliott, Sharon Stiteler, Paul Baicich, Bill Thompson III, Jim McCormac, Wayne Peterson, Lisa White and Jeff Gordon, all lined up to meet, greet and sign. I was sandwiched in next to Bill, because we both sign copies of several of his books that I've illustrated or helped on.

If all this sounds like fun, please consider attending. There's PLENTY of lodging space left, both on the Lakeside grounds and off, from humble dormitories to bed and breakfasts to cottages to hotels in nearby Port Clinton.

Click here: Lodging Options  

or

Email: hotels@lakesideohio.com 

or 

call: Lakeside's Steve Koenig at 

419-798-4461 x 230 or

1-866-952-5374

What I'm trying to say is It's Not Too Late to Regiser and PLEASE COME SEE US! You'll be so glad you did. Birders are the friendliest people anywhere. And this is such a lovely, smoothly-run event in a lovely, smoothly-run place. It has a huge and an insanely great vendor mart, too, so if you're thinking of upgrading your optics or picking up the latest, hottest books, clothing, or birding accoutrements, this is IT.

Come ogle the many gorgeous homes and gardens.

Come hang out with people who love birds. Come hear terrific talks and watch the sun rise over Lake Erie.

  Come chase fall warblers with people who also think that's fun. Maybe the Kirtland's warbler who graced 2009's event will stop by again. You never know what will show up on migration along Lake Erie.

Hey! I'm a Cape May!

Visit midwestbirding.org for every detail. Check the toolbar across the site's top for links to everything you could want.
 The Thompson/Zickefoose/Baker family is anxious to see you there.

We'll be gassing up down at the Sibley Mart on the way up. Only seems fittin'.

Playing with the Canon G-11

Well, I was having such fun exploring the macro capabilities of my new camera, the Canon G-11, it was hard to get off the porch. I've lost track of which of these photos are whose. Probably most are Phoebe's.
A Gerbera daisy. Woweee.

More gladiola naughty bits.

A fabulous painted rose from a birthday bouquet from our friends at Lakeside. Those guys do it up right.

A 20x zoom got me up close to a very cool stained glass window on The Owl House. Dunno why it's called that, other than the owls all over it. Bet Susan would like to install a window like this! I like that he looks so cranked off.
Macro and wide angle both. Here's a whole house.

And here's my little family, everyone in focus. Heck, the whole scene's in focus!

I've asked Phoebe when she becomes a supermodel, just to send the money home. And not to take it seriously; just do the shoots and send the money home and save some for your education.

Gawrsh, Bill's on the iPhone. Whaddya know.

More Bacon Bits, these by Phoebe:

overlong toedynails, I know, I know. I'm going to clip them this week. It's just our favorite thing to do. Can't you tell?

And a pebbly rough jellybean nose. If you're seduced by these photos, click for a product description of the Canon G-11.

If you decide to buy the camera, I'd be much obliged if you use this link to do it. It gets you to B & H Photo's page, where you'll find the lowest price and best service for your purchase.

A psychedelic paisley fishy in a sushi restaurant (not, fortunately, slated for the platter.) Hot news flash: now identified as a mandarin goby (really a dragonet) Synchiropus splendidus, by Myamuhnative and Tai haku. Thanks, folks! It's native to the Indo-Pacific Ocean.

Like many gorgeous ocean reef fish, the mandarin dragonet is heavily collected, heavily traded, and has lousy survivorship in captivity. It takes a specialized diet of copepods and often starves to death in captivity. Sigh. One more reason I could never keep a saltwater tank--too many sadnesses in the getting. Good luck, little dragonet. Looks like you're at the end of your biological road, in a sushi restaurant somewhere in Ohio.

And a couple of happy little monkeys.

Every once in awhile you meet a dog you could just scoop up and take home, no questions asked. Nugget is such a dog. A ChiWeenie (chihuahua x dachshund), saved from a pound when he could fit in your palm. A rare dog, cuddler supreme, with a terrific sense of humor and a coat like satin. He smelled like sunshine, like someone else I know.

Having grown up with a beloved but dour little dachshund, I think Nugget's sense of humor and joie d'vivre comes entirely from the chihuahua side. I highly recommend the combination!


He is thoroughly doted on by our wonderful friends Beth and Kevin. As he should be. One of the luckiest little dogs I've ever met. From the pound to the lap of love. It was so great to hang with them, such lovely people. They understand about dogs, and why we need them around. They also completely understood why The Bacon had to accompany us for our week at Lakeside. Thanks to Wendy for finding us a place that would waive the "no pets" rule.

It was a good thing Chet Baker was waiting for me back at our cottage. Kevin and Beth would have had a prime suspect in Nugget's sudden disappearance otherwise.

In other news, Ohio Wildlife Center just called with news on Dee Dee the big brown bat. Remember HER?!? Well, she's still in rehab, having refused to fly or flown only weakly until just a couple of weeks ago. But now she's flying well and will be transferred to a flight cage tonight. Then she's got three weeks of conditioning before she can be released.

They've got her rations cut to 10 mealworms/day but she's still 23 grams--way heavy for a big brown bat. Pregnant? Only time will tell! I really hope she's not pregnant, because if she delivers, she'll have to be kept until the baby starts flying. Arrrgh. But she and Darryl were very close, and she was housed with another male bat at OWC until May, and she probably mated last fall too, so all I can say is stay tuned!

I can't tell you how happy this makes me, to think that out of all the bat troubles, Dee Dee might once again flitter across the Marietta skies. Keep your fingers crossed for her.

This is me, getting my dogfix. I need a dogfix about every ten minutes. Pass the ChiWeenie! Hold the mustard!

The New Camera Yahoo's

The first photo I took with my new camera.

We spent last week at Lakeside, Ohio, giving talks for their summer Chautauqua. This thoughtful man brought something nice along with him, as Father Time decreed that I would trudge a little farther into my fifth decade on July 24.

That somethin'-somethin' was a new camera for me. You see, when we visited Yellowstone National Park back in June, I left the park a little souvenir: My Canon Digital Rebel XTi, the faithful workhorse that has been delighting you all for the last four years. We were watching a peregrine and her chicks on a distant cliff, and there were bighorns nursing their lambies, and an Audubon's warbler close by, and I got excited and started pulling out optics and scopes and digiscoping stuff and in the kerfuffle I left my poor Rebel with its wonderful wide-angle lens on a low stone wall. And though we realized it right away and raced back 20 minutes later, that was enough leeway for somebody to steal it. What...a...fleepin'....bummer. Yeah, I reported it immediately at a nearby ranger station, and I reported it to Xanterra, the concessionaire at Yellowstone, but nobody ever turned it in. They took it home instead. Sure hope they liked my larkspur photos, the rat finks. I mean, what kind of creep could download photos of my kids and a bunch of wildflowers and bison and not want to return the camera to its mom? I just can't think about that.

Luckily I still had my newer Canon Digital Rebel XSi with the 70-300 mm. image-stabilized telephoto lens, so we finished out the trip shooting like mad as usual. But oh, I missed having two cameras, one for landscape and one for wildlife. I felt naked without having a camera on each shoulder.

Fortuitously, at that very spot, a semi-pro photographer had excitedly shown us his Canon Powershot G-11, the Cadillac of point-and-shoot cameras. He told us that every National Geographic photographer carries one; every pro working the Olympics has one. They use it for crowd shots, grab shots, everything. It has 10 mpxl with RAW capability; is crazy fast and sharp, and it's a delightful little chunk of metal in your hands. It was clear this guy with his big howitzer lenses was nuts about his little point-and-shoot.

So that's what Bill gave me for my birthday last week, a Canon G-11. And I started hitting that shutter button and every time I put it down Phoebe grabbed it, so we'll take you on the test drive together.

Wide angle. Everything's in focus. Chetty's watching for passing doggehs he can snorf at.

I missed my garden so much I brought it with me. Oh, look. Gladiolus bits.

Oh, and look. Grains of zinnia pollen.

See, I've never had macro capability, much less a camera that figures out when I need macro capability and automatically switches to it. I had the lens practically touching the flower for these shots.

The whole bouquet. Nothing dresses up a sunporch like homegrown glads. There's Chetty's leash, too. Whenever anyone said "walk," he'd dance out and grab it off the table and put it on the offender's knee. Oh, I love a talking dog.

The Canon G-11 has crazy MonkeyCam capability. You can swivel the big, bright LED screen so it faces BACKERDS, and you can point the camera right at yourselfs and see what you're shooting and get fabulous, hugely flattering pictures like this.

Oh, look. Phoebe's contact lens. She took dozens of dreamy self-portraits, as a newly minted teenager will. She turned the LED viewfinder around, stuck the camera in her eye and took a photo. I think she has 16 eyelash mites.


Mether. Take a picture of me, Chet Baker. Here, I will pose for it. And then let's go for another walk. I like walking on the lead here at Lakeside. It makes me feel important, and many nice older people stop and ask if I am one of those Boston Bulls. I like being called a Boston Bull.

I see you are still playing with your new toy. I will give you one more pose. But I hope that you know we could take much more interesting photos outside, if we went for a walk. A WALK. I am sending you a mental picture of us taking a WALK.

I think that if I concentrate hard enough, you will take me for a WALK. Hmm hmm hmm hmm. Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. Picture of me and you going for a walk. Hm hm.

All right, Chetty. We'll take you and the Canon G-11 for a WALK. Until Thursday, arribaderchy. And happy birthday to me! Thanks, babe. Bitchin' birfday present.

Astute readers (and that means all of you) will notice that there are hotlinks to these products right in the text. Hit a blue link, and it will take you to B&H Photo's product description page for that camera or lens. Decide that you want to buy it right then and there, or come back later and buy it by clicking on my link, and I get a little bitty kickback from B&H. It won't cost you a cent more; in fact, I've done all the research for you and found the fabulous cameras and lenses and the lowest price and best service around. It'll just help buy Baby some shoes.