Gripping Bogeys

Tuesday night I got to say goodbye to my Olympia folks in fine fashion. The whole house- Dave, Devin, Clara, Lexi, Babbi, and I went to a burrito shop that had this hidden lounge in the back, for a few drinks. Yesterday morning, Devin drove me to the shuttle bus in Longwood so I could get to the airport. In the airport, I heard someone call my name, so I looked back. Surprisingly, it was Will, my couchsurfing host from the Olympic peninsula! I new he was flying out on this day to head to Mexico, but I didn’t know what time (and I had mistakenly mentioned to him that my flight was the next day). It turned out that he was on my flight to Dallas, where we both had layovers. It also turned out that he had seat 24D and I had 24F. Crazy to think that even if we hadn’t met each other, two birders would have been sitting with one person in the middle of them. I politely asked the man in the middle to switch, which he was willing to do so Will and I could chat birds. For a little while, Will took a nap, and I finished up reading Under the Banner of Heaven, a book about Mormonism and its nuttiness. I noticed the guy next to me kind of reading along, and I glanced over to see he had a Ladder-Day Saints nametag on. He said nothing to me about the book, and I am glad for that.

I got to Dallas, then to Ft. Myers FL at about 9:30pm with no complications. Kim picked me up there, and we headed to her house to have some delicious pizza.

This morning, we headed to Sanibel Island at about 8:30am. Right after leaving Kim's house, we checked out the local BURROWING OWL nesting sites. At Ding Darling NWR, we encountered a bunch of the birds I hadn't seen in a while, or in this year project. Some of these included WOOD STORK, REDDISH EGRET, ROSEATE SPOONBILL, RUDDY TURNSTONE, and PALM WARLBER. On our drive to Blind Pass, a beach on Sanibel, we got great looks at MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD. At the beaches, we scoped out several NORTHERN GANNET, as well as SANDWICH TERN. A great day of birding with 53 species seen on the day.

In the evening, Kim and Alison (from Audubon of Florida) gave a presentation on bats at a local elementary school. Alison brought detectors that made sounds when bats flew overhead, which we got to hear in action. After, Kim and I got some Indian food, and now we are chilling with some starfruit wine!