Happy Birthday, Bill!

I told Bill this morning I feel like a very lucky woman.

I get to share so much with him, and he makes it so much fun.

Photo by Mary Ferracci

There's not much Bill likes better than getting people on a life bird. He's good at it, too. He chases down the beginners, wrests from unwilling lips their mumbled confession that they didn't really get a look at it that time, then makes sure they get a killer look at it the next time. He makes it his mission. You should see the smiles he brings.

Fun (and Connie and Claire and Anne and Ric and Kelly and Sara and Nina) seems to follow him wherever he goes.

Forget Pied Piper.  He's way cooler than that.

He's the Mack Daddy of birdwatching.

And then there's the full-blown Crowmance going on, the huge adventure of making our own music from the ground up with like minded souls, The Rain Crows.

Mr. Fez makes it happen.

He puts everything he's got into music, making sure everybody's on the same train. And when everybody gets on that train, look out, because it's going to go somewhere. He looks like he's relaxing here. Nope. Just planning his next move.

photo by Timothy Ryan

I dream of spring, when we can walk slowly down our trails, listening and looking at everything

and Bill can teach Liam, again, how to throw properly

with a backdrop of filmy green and sibilant warbler song

leaving me to marvel that this vessel of wonderful DNA is going to grow up big and tall, maybe even knowing how to throw with pinpoint accuracy like his Daddy

maybe not

but we all will have had fun in the trying and the growing.

I'm not saying the sun exactly shines out of Bill's posterior all the time

but on the whole he's a pretty awesome mega-chunk of humanity and 

photo by Shila Wilson

we feel mighty lucky to have him in our lives. Blessed, yes, that fits. Happy birthday, BT3. You are the bomb.

The Hotdog Brothers

Oh, how I loved watching my boys, the Hotdog Brothers, working the river together. There was so much to see.
I love this shot.
And this one. Liam passed some of the time by drawing.


Liam proved a slightly intermittent paddler, but Bill was more than able to pilot the huge loaded canoe himself. It might have been nice to have a little more power in the bow, but he didn't complain. Phoebe and I needed to go full bore just to keep up with him. He's got guns under those sleeves.

Every once in awhile, a man needs to rest, however.

Liam was charged with making sure they didn't run aground. But the sun and trickling water worked their magic on him, too, and his head dropped lower and lower.

Soon he was sound asleep.


I cannot tell you how much he looks like my father here. How many times have I seen my dad in just this pose. Never in a canoe, mind you; he was an Iowa farm boy, wasn't much for water. But asleep, chin on chest, hands clasped? Oh yes.

Threading the Needle with Bill of the Birds

Not only was the slot canyon spookily magical, but it offered some fabulous photo-ops.

There came a point where it narrowed down to a squeeze. Now the fun begins!

I often wish I were taller than I am. This was not one of those times.

The slot canyon narrowed down to a hole, blocked by a huge boulder. You had to crawl under the boulder to get through. It was tight. I was regretting the extra biscuits, but I made it.

Come on, Daddy! You can do it! I just did it!

Of course, Liam did it in seconds. Little snot. Then he climbed the wall just for fun.



Bill of the Birds examines his options. He don't much like that crawl-under thing.

Nick suggests climbing the wall a ways back and coming along the ledge instead. So Bill handed us his camera and binocs and went for it.

This was not an option I was wild about. The ledge kind of melted away in a Dali-esque drip as it neared the passage. Bill soon reaches a point where he can go neither up nor down, forward nor back. Oh, drat. You guys go on. I'll just stay and feed the burying beetles.


Back to Plan A. In order to squeeze through beneath the boulder, Bill has to wriggle on his back, like a sea otter. I went through on my hands and knees.


He's going to make it.
I think we should do this slot canyon hike every year. It will keep us honest when the Christmas cookies come around.

This post is dedicated to all the Little People out there. Sometimes we rule.

For those needing another Chet Baker fix, as well as a splendid photographic and video run-down of October 11's Big Sit from our tower, go visit Jim McCormac's excellent blog, Ohio Birds and Biodiversity. There is a picture of Chet there that will make you smooch your screen.