Born Again Bird Watcher

Living in Oregon as I do, it’s not often that I get to attend one of Birdchick’s famous Birds and Beers events. However as both Birdchick and I are simultaneously attending the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, Texas, I naturally accepted the invitation given by her to join in the gathering held on Thursday evening at the famous Lone Star Restaurant. It was quite a gathering of blogging bird watchers.

Amy of WildBird on the Fly was there, as was Clay, Swarovski’s internationally renowned birding and nature guru. (Don’t worry, trained rescue personnel were standing by in the event that anyone accidentally fell into Clay’s margarita.)

Of course, the Birdchick was also present in both fine form and high spirit.

A blogger who it was my pleasure to meet only that evening, Eva from The Flying Mullet, swapped quite a few stories with Hugh of Round Robin, the Cornell Blog of Ornithology.

Finally, sitting next to me but too close to photograph lest blindness be inflicted by the flash, was Catherine of birdspot, a very talented artist and blogger who I also met for the first time that evening. As with all of Birdchick’s events, it was a splendid evening with much mirth, merriment, and perhaps even a teensy bit of mayhem – at least intellectually.

Peace and good bird watching.

Once again, it’s time for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, Texas. The event, one of the best and best attended of the U.S. Birding festivals opened today and will continue to run throughout the week-end. There will be field trips to all the south valley birding hotspots, an exhibit hall packed to the walls with vendors demonstrating the latest birding gear (including the Wingscapes BirdCam, which I am representing here), birding and nature tour companies, and a line-up of superb speakers – including everyone’s favorite, Birdchick – presenting a host of birding and natural history topics.

I’ll be posting moblog posts throughout the festival so be sure to check back frequently for updates, or better yet, subscribe to the Born Again Bird Watcher feed and have them sent directly to your RSS reader of choice.

Moblogging from the Casa de Amistad in Harlingen, Texas, peace and good bird watching.

Despite the physical and attitudinal resemblance, I was not the original model for the design on Birdchick’s Disapproving Rabbits t-shirt.

That honor goes to her rabbit Cinnamon.

Either way, they are really cool t-shirts and I highly recommend that everyone visit her website and check them out.