Anything Goes!

Eastern Bluebird in Athens, June 1

Those of you who have read my blog for a while (and thank you for that!) will know that every June I participate from afar in the Alachua County Audubon June Bird Challenge. I joined in this fun activity when we lived in Florida and have tried to continue it on my own since moving away some 11 years ago. The object of the June Challenge is to see as many species of birds as you can within the county from June 1-30. You can work in teams and in fact, teamwork is encouraged. But you must actually see the bird for it to count. It was always fun for me, and although I never came close to winning, I enjoyed seeking target birds and exploring all the best nature spots in the county with my birding friends. When I moved away I was sad to leave that behind, but I took the opportunity to create my own version, in a new county, with a new target list. At first I tried to cajole some friends into joining me, but June is hot and steamy in Georgia and no one took me up on my invitation. So for 11 years I have done the June Challenge on my own. A couple of years ago I decided that, since I didn't have extra eyes to help me find the stubborn hiders, it would be ok to count birds I knew I heard, even if I didn't see them. It felt a little cheaty, but I'm not going for the win anyway, and it's my list, so there. This year presented a new, bigger challenge. We had a lot of travel scheduled and I would not be in the county, or the state, or even the country for long stretches. In addition, the days that I was in town were packed with preparation for being away. But I really wanted to do the June Challenge. So, in addition to allowing birds heard but not seen, I decided to count any bird I saw, regardless of location. I was in Athens-Clarke County for about 1 week in June so I missed my chance to find a lot of the good reliable birds, like Mississippi Kite, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Breasted Chat, and Yellow Billed Cuckoo, but I managed to get a good start at home. With my new "Calvinball" rules (from Calvin and Hobbes--the rules change as you go!) I got an Osprey in South Carolina, a Starling in Roanoke, a Bald Eagle in West Virginia, a Great Egret in Susquehanna, a Black-capped Chickadee in New Jersey, a Louisiana Water Thrush in the Hudson Valley of New York, and a Gull in Baltimore. I did much of that birding from the car so there were no photos. But I felt happy to still be playing along.

A week after returning from our road trip up the East Coast and back, we hopped a plane to Buenos Aires, and I was able to add a whole slew of good birds, never before seen on the June Challenge list! It was actually winter down there, but with the help of Merlin and the internet, I identified some good city birds that were just out and about in the parks, such as Monk Parakeets, Rufous Thrushes and Rufous Horneros. A juvenile Harris's Hawk sat in a tree outside of our hotel room and let me get some good long looks. We took a side trip to Colonia, Uruguay, and I added Red-crested Cardinals, Great Kiskadees and Picazuru Pigeons. While we were in Buenos Aires we also got caught up in World Cup fever. They sure love Messi down there! Vamos Argentina! 

Monk Parakeets in a park

Harris's Hawk outside our room

Great Kiskadee

Red-crested Cardinal

Picazuru Pigeon

World Cup in Argentina

Cattle Tyrant waiting for a bus

At the end of the week we spent a couple of hours in a fantastic urban nature preserve, the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve. It's a preserved wetland area on the edge of Buenos Aires. We took an Uber there. It is very popular with walkers, runners, birders, photographers, and families with picnics and the place was loaded with great birds for my list. I could have spent the whole week there. I added Crested Caracaras, Southern Screamers, Wattled Jacanas, a Roadside Hawk, White-faced Whistling Ducks, Black Necked Swans, a Golden-crowned Warbler, and more. I even saw turtles and some nutria swimming. It was very satisfying. In all I counted 33 species in Buenos Aires. Added to the five I saw on the road to New York and the 58 I counted in Athens, my total came to 96. I can live with that! 

Costanera Sur preserve

The preserve is right next to the Porto Madero part of Buenos Aires

White-faced Whistling Ducks and Rosy-billed Pochards

Crested Caracara walking along the beach near picnickers

Southern Screamer

Wattled Jacana

Nutria

Golden-crowned Warbler

One other thing I'd like to note. The world seems so unhinged and crazy these days, and it would be easy to give in to the fear and hype and just stay home where it feels safe and predictable. But if you have the chance, I urge you to take a step away from home and experience life in a different culture. It broadens your perspective and adds to your collected experience. Taste the food, walk the streets, listen to the conversations, see families play and interact and go about their days just like we do at home. It is a character building experience to feel how humbling it is to try to get by day to day, performing the most basic transactions in another language. I think the world would be a much kinder place if everyone had to try to figure out how to ask how to find the bathroom or to get change for the washing machine in a different language. For that matter, to figure out what soap to use! But just get out there and give it a try. You will find that most people are kind and happy to help if you make the effort to step into their world.

I guess the big message here is that it's not whether you win or lose, but whether you have fun and get out there see some birds and wildlife and enjoy the world. Which I did this June. And I can't wait for next June!

Here's my June 2026 list. Out of county birds have an asterisk:

Acadian Flycatcher	X
Barn swallow	X
Black and white warbler	X
Black vulture	X
Blue gray gnatcatcher	X
Blue jay	X
Bluebird	X
Brown headed nuthatch	X
Brown thrasher	X
Canada goose	X
Cardinal	X
Carolina wren	X
Catbird	X
Chickadee	X
Chimney swift	X
Chipping sparrow	X
Common grackle	X
Cooper's hawk	X
Cowbird	X
Crow (American)	X
Downy woodpecker	X
Eastern kingbird	X
Eastern phoebe	X
Eastern wood pewee	X
Fish crow	X
Goldfinch	X
Great blue heron	X
Great crested flycatcher	X
Great white egret	X
Green heron	X
House finch	X
*House sparrow	X
House wren	X
*Louisiana waterthrush	X
Mockingbird	X
Mourning dove	X
Northern rough winged swallow	X
*Osprey	X
*Pileated woodpecker	X
Pine warbler	X
Red bellied woodpecker	X
Red eyed vireo	X
Red shouldered hawk	X
Red tailed hawk	X
*Red winged blackbird	X
Robin	X
*Rock pigeon	X
Ruby throated hummingbird	X
Scarlet tanager	X
*Song sparrow	X
*Starling	X
Summer tanager	X
*Titmouse	X
Towhee	X
Turkey vulture	X
*White breasted nuthatch	X
White eyed vireo	X
Wood thrush	X
*Cattle Egret	X
*Gull	X
*Black-capped Chickadee	X
*Bald Eagle	X
*Yellow Warbler	X
*Harris's Hawk	X
*Rufous Hornero	X
*Chalk-browed Mockingbird	X
*Yellow-chevroned Parakeet	X
*Maroon-bellied Parakeet	X
*Monk Parakeet	X
*Great Kiskadee	X
*Picazuro Pigeon	X
*Grayish Baywing	X
*Rufous-bellied Thrush	X
*Red-crested Cardinal	X
*Narrow-billed Woodcreeper	X
*Southern Screamer	X
*White-faced Whistling Duck	X
*Black-necked Swan	X
*White-winged Coot	X
*Wattled Jacana	X
*Rufescent Tiger Heron	X
*Cocoi Heron	X
*Roadside Hawk	X
*Green Kingfisher	X
*Crested Caracara	X
*Cattle Tyrant	X
*Rufous-collared Sparrow	X
*Shiny Cowbird	X
*Golden-crowned Warbler	X
*Masked Gnatcatcher	X
*Southern Lapwing	X
*Brazilian Teal	X
*Rosy-billed Pochard	X
*Blue-and-white Swallow	X
*Bare aced Ibis	X
*Nanday Parakeet	X

My Fellow Americans

The long road, somewhere between Vernal and Vail

My husband and I like to travel and often we will choose to drive. We don't really like the fact that flying has such a huge carbon footprint, and it takes so long to deal with the airport. Besides, flying is uncomfortable and it's not always more convenient. Driving may or may not take more time, but it gives you flexibility and room for all your stuff, and and it's nice to have a vehicle at your end destination. I don't love interstate highway driving, but I do enjoy seeing how the view changes as we move from state to state and zone to zone, going from lush green forest to desert, hilly to flat to mountains and back. 

Wind Farming in Oklahoma 

Southwest Colorado

Nearing Telluride, CO

Cotton Fields in the Mississippi Delta

This summer we took a pretty epic road trip. We drove more than 4000 miles, from Athens, GA to Telluride, CO and on to Salt Lake City, and then back home again, with overnight stops in Tupelo, MS, Little Rock, AR, Shamrock, TX, Santa Fe, NM, Denver, CO, Wichita, KS, Bentonville, AR, and Birmingham, AL. We have an electric vehicle and so we charge 1-2 times a day on a long drive, and plan for a hotel where we can charge overnight. We usually eat lunch while the car charges which takes about 45 minutes. Whenever possible we try to find local eateries. Sometimes the chargers are located in parking lots with no food service nearby, so we hang around the car and snack or pick up munchies from a Walmart, one of the most common businesses that offer charging stations. Occasionally we luck out and find wonderful, fast chargers in beautiful settings and that makes a huge difference. Often while we charge, we have conversations with fellow EV drivers or people who are curious about how it works. Everyone is eager to compare notes about the various EV's and share good and bad charging experiences. 

Just a couple of EV drivers having a chat at the chargers

Typical hotel charger

This charging stop in Moab, UT is probably the nicest one we've been to. The chargers were fast and plentiful, and while you wait you can picnic or hike along trails that lead to Arches N.P.

We set out on the road one morning in late July, heading to Little Rock. We spent the first night in Tupelo, MS, and we came back to our hotel from dinner just as a massive flock of Purple Martins was flying overhead. I stood and watched for a good 15 minutes as tens of thousands of birds flew over in waves. Other people in the hotel parking lot were watching this amazing sight, too. It was marvelous. We shared a moment of awe and appreciation.

Tupelo, MS

A few nights later, we stopped for the night in Shamrock, TX, a small town just over the OK/TX border on old Route 66. We picked a hotel that said it had a charger, but when we tried to plug in, the charger just wasn't working. This could have been a problem for us, but the busy and kind hotel manager helped us by calling the charger company and resetting the system. She didn't know anything about the charger, and said hardly anyone used it, but she gamely came outside in very hot weather and worked on the phone with customer service to help us out. She said they get a lot of storms and the chargers probably got knocked off line. We thanked her profusely and let her know how helpful it was to have stops like this available on the road. Later that evening, we walked around town to find something to eat and ended up at a local bar and hamburger restaurant that happened to be hosting live music outside. The place was busy and everyone seemed to know each other and the musicians, but they made room for us and welcomed us in. We got a table by the yard and ate dinner while we listened to great music as the sun went down. 

Summer Music in Shamrock, TX

When we arrived in Santa Fe and then Telluride (our main destination, for a conference) we joined the ranks of fellow tourists in vacation destinations, where none of us were locals and we were all just passing through, enjoying the food, culture and scenery. People were from everywhere and from all walks of life and political persuasions and we all managed to get along just fine. And each leg of our journey gave us another taste (sometimes literally!) of the incredible diversity and beauty our country has to offer. 

Dead Horse Point in southern Utah

Silver Lake at Brighton, Utah

Traveling through Española, NM and Durango, CO, Green River and Vernal, UT, and Oxford, MS, we ate delicious regional food (blue corn pancakes with piñon nuts, or green chili cheeseburgers, or catfish and greens, anyone?) charged our car, rested up, and enjoyed our short visits. Everywhere we go people are friendly. Servers in cafes ask us where we're from and tell us what not to miss in their town. People in hotels or museums or parks are quick to say hi and chit chat about weather, cute dogs, etc. We get a lot of "Go Dawgs" when my husband has on his UGA hat. Mostly we don't know who they are voting for, and they don't know about us, though sometimes we can all guess, but it doesn't seem to matter. Everyone is nice. I know the friendly reaction might be different if we were not a middle aged, middle class, white, heterosexual couple, but even in small rural towns where we stood out with our EV, my jeans and nature t-shirts, and my husband's beard and long hair, everyone treated us well.

Huevos Rancheros in Santa Fe

Catfish for lunch in Oxford, MS

For the trip home from Salt Lake, we chose a slightly more northern route than we have taken before and it led us through the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah, then to Denver via Glenwood Springs, across Kansas, up to Bentonville, AR, and down to Little Rock. From there we drove the back way through Oxford, MS and down to Birmingham, AL and on to Georgia. The highways on this route, until about Birmingham, were smaller and we slowed down and enjoyed the scenery as we moved from the Rocky Mountains to the plains. We saw farms and forests, wind farms and oil fields, deer and antelope, prairie dogs and golden eagles, and watched storms blowing in. Arriving back home in Georgia, I felt happy that we had experienced so much of our huge and beautiful country. 

Denver after a big rain

Storm clouds building on the Kansas prairie

We spent a night in Wichita, across the Arkansas River from the stadium for the local minor league baseball team, the Wichita Wind Surge. There was a game that night and it looked pretty fun but we'd arrived in town too late to consider attending. 

We stopped in Bentonville, AR to see the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It was totally worth the visit. This is a work by James Turrell. The blue is the sky, seen in this "Skyspace", a structure with a hole in the ceiling. The colors and reflections and shadows change constantly through the day.

Sleeping Cows in Arkansas

Crossing the Mighty Mississippi River

Busy Birmingham

Home, Sweet Home

Now, here we are on Election Day, and there is a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety all across the U.S. We are fearful about what the future brings. No matter who wins, the other side will be scared and angry. We mistrust the intentions of the politicians and the people who surround them.  I am very concerned and this election has been keeping me up at night. There is so much at stake. But I don't buy that the people of our country are as divided as we are led to believe. I think we are not all that different from each other. We all want a good life for our families and friends and we care about the places we live in. I have observed this through our travels and at home in my own neighborhood. At core, regardless of what we might be told by people trying to scare us into voting a certain way, we get along with our neighbors and are kind to strangers. We may disagree about our politics, but we put that aside and pitch in when we see someone in need, as evidenced in the recent hurricanes. We volunteer to feed the hungry, clean the roadside, coach our kids' sports teams, lead scout troops, and staff polling places. We say hi when we pass on the sidewalk. We smile at kids, and pet dogs. We hold doors open. We look out for each other. Most people are kind. We live in a beautiful country of good people. And our differences make us interesting! We are all in this together. No matter who wins or loses the election I will be keeping this in mind.

Dailyappreciation

 

I recently got my copy of Patti Smith's "A Book of Days". It is a collection of a year of her photos and thoughts, memories and celebrations from her Instagram page, most of them created during the pandemic. There is a page for every day of the year. I've really enjoyed it so far and decided to read it one day at a time to fully appreciate the images and messages. Reading her introduction, it dawned on me that I had been doing something similar this past year with my photos and my life. I would never dream of comparing myself to Patti Smith, except in recognizing an intentional practice that we both seemed to have turned to in what she called, "deeply uncertain times". She has been in the habit of taking a photo and writing every day for years. I am a newcomer.

I have really been struggling for a while, and especially so in the last 2 years. My optimistic goals to power through the early part of the pandemic with nature walks and writing only worked so long. But then Covid and its variants stayed around and kept coming, and our activities took so long to return to normal, in addition to unbelievable political craziness, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fire, drought, war, shootings, riots, and ecological disasters, including the shrinking of the Great Salt Lake in my home state, I just couldn't keep it up. I tried. I composed dozens of "inspired" essays in my head when I took walks or gardened or went birding, but by the time I got home, I found that most of what I wanted to say felt unimportant and trite along side of the huge issues all around me and I'd let it go. As a result, I rarely posted in my blog. Eventually, I didn't really feel like going on those hikes, or even leaving home unless I had to. I was tired, and didn't see the point. I'm pretty sure I was depressed. 

On New Year's Day 2022 I decided that I needed to do something to pull myself out of the funk. I recognized that I always feel good when I am photographing nature, especially, the tiny things. I felt that a good way to start would be by making myself get out and find at least one thing that caught my attention or made me feel good every day, take a photo, and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #dailyappreciation. Posting made me accountable to other people and it would make it harder for me to ditch my personal goal, and Instagram doesn't necessarily require any text. Brevity is good. Some days I didn't go much further than my back yard, posting photos of a bug on the window, birds at the feeder, or lichen on twigs that fell from the big water oak. But the project forced me to look for something outside of the news, and that felt good. Most of the time I took pictures just with my phone. As the year progressed, and our activities returned to the new normal, we traveled and started visiting with family and friends, attending concerts and festivals again. I flew to visit my mom for the first time in 2 years. Sometimes out of cell phone contact, or traveling in the car cross country, there were days that I scrambled to find a picture and post it. But I was determined. There were a few days that the weather was bad or the day got away from me because I was too busy (a good thing!), and I dug into my photo archives for something memorable from that day sometime in the past, but I tried not to lean too much on that option. 

I started to hear comments from people who thanked me for my posts and that they looked forward to them as something beautiful or interesting each day. Their feedback buoyed me. I had a mission now and did not want to let my followers down. My meditative practice was spreading good energy, not just to me but to my friends. And so I posted every day, sometimes twice, for one year. The resulting body of work made me feel good and looks like a beautiful patchwork quilt in the Instagram layout. If I can ever figure out how to print the year, I will. It would be a cool poster. 

So here I am, a year later, still working on tuning out the noise. It's still not easy, and I'm afraid the uncertain times will be with us for a long time--maybe forever. But I'll keep looking for those things to appreciate and to steer myself out of the malaise, and I'll work at getting my deep thoughts out of my head and onto the page. Maybe not every day--that gets to be a grind! But I'll keep working and looking for the little things. And I'll keep sharing with my friends, because their feedback makes me feel good, and we all need a little beauty and love in our lives.