Last April M and I did some birding in Port Clinton. It was a little too early for the big warbler migration, so this year we corrected that problem by heading out to the same area for The Biggest Week in American Birding, which is a ten day event that typically corresponds with the height of the warbler's migrating north to Canada. As that link ( Read more... )

For the third  year in a row I spent more than a week in the Pacific Time Zone. This year's trip was to Palm Springs with a small side trip to Joshua Tree National Park and a day in San Diego at the end of the trip. We were visiting our family friend Mark, who as part of his retirement rents a house in Palm Springs for 3-4 months every winter and ( Read more... )

After my time in Los Angeles, I woke up on July 21 in Oxnard, California, which is right on the coast. I had made previous arrangements with Island Packers to take the ferry from the Oxnard waterfront to Channel Islands National Park, specifically Anacapa Island.

A small group of us were on a comparatively small boat for the hour ride across the ( Read more... )

Both M and I both worked on Monday, July 3. After we had dinner we walked the dogs down to the lake to enjoy the sunset. After that, M suggested we drive down to the Metroparks and look for fireflies. While we could see plenty of fireflies near my house, she thought we'd see more of them in the dark of the park.

We drove down into the Rocky River ( Read more... )

M enjoys birding, so this past weekend we took Friday off and drove west to the area around Port Clinton to do some birding and general touristing.

Our primary destination for Friday afternoon was Magee Marsh, which is a well known birding habitat on the shores of Lake Erie made up of some the remnants of the Great Black Swamp. This remnant, as ( Read more... )