Gas-hawks

Wednesday night, I went out with Lindsay and her crew of soil scientists. We drank at a microbrewery in town, which was pretty sweet. We loaded up on the beers that coast $2 between 8 and 9pm. Delicious, but I felt it a bit the next day for the 9 hour drive to the Lantz's house.


The last couple of days there were a lot of fun. On Thursday, I took Joshua, Nathan, and Brittanie out to Refuge that Carl works at, Crab Orchard NWR. We had a pretty productive go at it, seeing 37 species. We came across 3 YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOOS, and some good flocks of warblers. In one of the flocks, we saw a MAGNOLIA WARBLER as well as a GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER.

That night, I had heard a BARRED OWL. We played screech owl and barred owl tapes, and called them in. Carl brought out a spotlight so we were able to see the BARRED OWL quite well.


Friday, the whole gang went to a local castle playground that looked like it would be a great site for the 43rd Annual LARP Convention. Castles, dragons, and Depeche Mode playing.

Today we went to the Air Show at the Scott Airforce Base in Illinois. It was pretty loud, but the kids were having blasts. Now I'm in St. Louis, preparing for a couple days here, in the gateway to the west.