Baseball and birding

Yes my fellow birders....welcome to the dog days of August, as they say in baseball. Think now, as there is a reason why they call it the 'dog days' of baseball in August, or in the Phillies case...the entire summer. It is hot, humid and while there are no green-heads at Citizen Bank Park, it is none-the-less, a bit difficult to play baseball, nor watch it.

The other day, Deb and I were at a game and sat on the third deck right behind home plate. Some major 'brain' in baseball decided to start the game at 6pm as opposed to a more customary (and one where the sun is lower in the sky) at 7pm. So, humid....sultry with little wind. The game started and I think it ended prior to us passing out. Dog days of August.

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Take a look at the above video...hopefully it shows. Could you hit that ball coming in at 90mph? Now perhaps in my younger days when I was an average second baseman for my HS team I could almost hit it. But not so sure now. 

Let's zoom ahead a bit and transfer our thoughts. Baseball akin to Birding you say? Yes....now listen my fellow birders and retired ball players. While it is difficult to bird with the Green Heads about, nor transfer your birding skills to another locale here in the states such as Florida (good luck with that humidity) nor go out west with the heat and the snakes......it still can be found. 

A month or so, roughly...there-abouts and in that 'ballpark' (I told you birding was akin to baseball), Deb and I found THE PLACE to bird with no Green Heads and no humidity and at this time of the year, no high heat in place and from what I could tell from my advantage point, no snakes. 

Where is this.....it is between Gardiner, Montana and Medora, North Dakota. Look it up. I am talking about along the Interstate as well. Birds...birds.....birds....and more birds. They are all escaping the nasty heat or humidity of the lower, central, eastern, southern 90% locales of the United States. Birds abound. They have found their sanctuary and love it. Meadowlarks, ibis, sparrows of all types, cowbirds, grebes, owls, raptors, yellow-headed blackbirds, more sparrows you can guess at, more herons and waterbirds and and and and and more ands. Birds.......

This is how it played out..... I drove from North Yellowstone into Montana as we were heading to North Dakota, I got tired....so Deb drove. As she drove I pulled out my 'un-trusty' 10 x 42 Chinese Vortex that have more 'play' in the focus than wet noodles left on a stove for an hour. Pulling up the bins I could just about see a bird as we sped past at Montana's going rate for a speed limit which is 80. Being a pure northwestern and loving my share of Rainier Beer I want you to view this little ad from the 1970's:
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As the cycle passes, so too do the birds as I attempt to view them from my 10x42 cheap Chinese bins from the car, going at 80mph. One just can't do it. In fact....I imagine if I was attempting to hit a baseball at 90mph, I might have more luck. (See previous video in blog) .

So....there I was. I was left with this dilemma of 'birds' but 'what are they"? ....I could make out the larger Ross Goose or a cattle egret sitting on top of a steer, as the Steer was In. I had time to ponder as we had a few hundred miles to go. The roadside was littered with water as small clumps of drainage pools were abound. I suppose that might have attributed to the numbers of birds I was viewing. 

Hmmmm....how to view from the car with some hairy 10x42 bins and create a self-sick situation? When I used to work in Ecuador from Whaleboats, and part of what I did was view whales from a boat in the swales of an ocean, I do know a thing or two about getting sick at sea. I really didn't want to get sick off-water and in a car using binoculars. But there is a trick I figured out.

Look ahead...go west young man, go west....or in this case, let's reverse that and say, go east old man, go east.  Which I did. I focused ahead instead of to the side and not directly out the passenger window. I looked forward out of the front window and that way the binoculars had a chance of focusing in 'somewhatly) on a bird as we approached, as opposed to looking at birds as we were there. It made a huge difference. Sure the front window had a bit of a curve to it, which wasn't too bad since there wasn't any curved-billed thrashers in these parts to perhaps double down on me and become a non-curved thrasher due to the opposing front window which might have distorted it to become a non-curved thrasher instead of a curved thrasher. Does that make sense? Anyhow, no reason to bring that up as that wasn't an issue.

But....I looked ahead....I went east. I saw birds with the cheapo Chinese car binocular. I found birds where there were none to be found elsewhere in the states. Yeah....I won a prize I suppose. 

Now the funny thing was, that around Medora North Dakota, the birding on the road stopped. Just stopped... One would think that heading into the land of lakes and water and pools and mosquitoes of all sizes of the great state of Minnesota, that birding would be fantastic. But no....no birds. Just between Gardiner, Montana and Medora, North Dakota. Go figure....