I have blue eyes – blog 40

I have said too little, I feel, about the music which has accompanied me across 20 US states in just over five weeks. With a little help from Francis Sinatra; Thank you for coming to fly with me to see what spring is like in Michigan, Kansas and Utah. We saw Chicago in passing, which…

Disappointed of NM, delighted of TX – blog 39

Yesterday wasn’t a perfect day.  Nothing absolutely awful happened but it just didn’t work out that well.  But today ended on a very high note. Yesterday I drove through New Mexico and Texas to get to a National Park of which I had heard many years ago – Carlsbad Caverns.  Here I hoped to see…

Humming – blog 38

I  opened the curtains to look at the feeders in Richard Fray’s ‘yard’ before 6am on Thursday morning and all the birds flew away.  But then they came back and from my bed I saw two lifers – canyon towhee and varied bunting.  How great is that? And there were curve-billed thrashers and jackrabbits and…

Guided up a mountain – blog 37

Apologies for the late posting of this blog – yesterday was a great day but ended with difficulties in finding accommodation, difficulties in finding a meal and impossibilities in getting onto the internet.  Never mind. Where was I?  The last ‘live’ update you got from me was just before I went to talk to Tucson…

A bit random – blog 36

If you are reading this it means that I have spent today without time to write a blog.  This will, I hope, be because I have been seeing loads and loads of birds with Richard Fray. Seen: Bumper sticker – Obama so loved the poor that he decided to make millions more of them Billboard…

A red letter day – blog 35

You get two blogs today for the price of none. Today has been a lovely day – although I am writing this in a Starbucks in Tucson before giving my talk this evening so maybe it’ll all go wrong. It’s been an easy day.  I woke around 6am and set off from Ajo towards Tucson…

Aha, Ajo – blog 34

If you are reading this then it’s because I didn’t have time to write a blog ‘today’ because I was giving a talk to Tucson Audubon – so I wrote this ‘yesterday’  (except that another blog follows this one – I spoil you really). This is a very useful website as it gives you bird…

I drove through the desert – blog 33

I drove through the desert in a car with no name early this morning to avoid the heat.  The alarm was set for 5am but I awoke a little earlier so I was at Alamo Canyon by 0530. There were jackrabbits and cottontails, there were organpipe cacti and ocotillos, and there were Gila woodpeckers, ravens,…

On the border – blog 32

Around here they go for short names.  Up the road is Gila Bend where there is a ‘famous’ ‘space hotel’ where I stayed on my last trip.  But this time I took the road south towards Mexico and the Organpipe Cactus National Monument (one down (?) from a National Park?). You know the organpipe cactus…

Leaving California – blog 31

I’m not sure abut how I feel about California. With  a population of 38million it is the most populous of US states, and indeed it would rank as the 12th largest economy in the world in its own right, so it isn’t to be ignored. I’ve spent about two weeks here – partly to see…