Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Today we took a little birding trip to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge South of Cambridge on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Blackwater is home to both Winter migrant and year round resident populations of Bald Eagles. They are the stars of a show that never fails to deliver a good birding trip. We saw a lot of eagles.

Of course we went to look for more than just them. Here is a list of what we saw. We saw more than one of nearly all of these birds, but I'm only going to list the species, not the quantities.

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Starling (of course)	Bald Eagle
Blue Heron	Canadian Geese (1000s)
Crow	Robin
Red Tail Hawk	Ring Billed Gull
Herring Gull	Cardinal
Blue Jay	Tern (not sure what kind)
White Throated Sparrow	Mallard
Ring Necked Duck	Pintail Duck
Northern Shoveller	White Breasted Nuthatch
Brown Headed Nuthatch	Blue Bird
Downey Woodpecker	Red Bellied Woodpecker
Chickadee	Tufted Titmouse
Mocking Bird	Harrier
Pileated Woodpecker	Mourning Dove
Turkey Vulture	Tundra Swan

Birding

We are going to take Seth on his first birding trip this weekend. Of course he won't realize that he is birding, but Debbie and I will have fun and he will be happy to be along for the ride.

I am looking forward to getting out and travelling around a bit.

Seth in Flemington

Seth watching his first basketball game in Flemington NJ.

That sweater, by the way, was knitted by my Aunt Marie for my nephew. Since my nephew is 10, and hasn't worn this sweater in some time, we have it on a loan for a while.. Seth seems to be quite comfy in it, and it has a cool hood that makes him look like a tiny little Jedi Knight. May the force be with you!

Srping Training

It may still feel like winter outside, but today the Washington Nationals pitchers and catchers report for spring training. I am already excited about baseball.

I still have a warm spot in my heart for the Orioles, and always will, but I am ready to follow the Nationals. I have never really paid much attention to NL teams in the past because I have been an Os fan. So now I guess I have two teams to follow. The Nationals in the NL and the Orioles in the AL.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

The Potomac Cannons are now the Potomac Nationals. The Division A minor league team in Woodbridge, VA decided that it would make good marketing sense for them to have the same name as their Big League affiliate. They are only 30 miles or so from DC so they might be able to sell some tickets to baseball hungry Nationals fans.

I never really thought that the Cannons was a great name any way. Now, what are they going to do for a mascot? I guess Boomer (the cannon ball) is out of a job.

Footloose

Debbie and I just watched Footloose on AMC. For anybody who was in high school in the early eighties it is almost like a class reunion. Every song on the soundtrack was burned into our collective consciousness. Kevin Bacon is remarkably like Dick Clark in that he doesn't seem to have aged much in the last twenty years.

As we all know, the movie is only a B+ at best, but if you want to remember what was cool in 1984 this is the film to watch.

A little time at home

Debbie and Seth went off too visit with her friend Colleen today which leaves me at home for a few hours by myself. I used to have a lot of this kind of unstructured time when Debbie was working. Two nights a week and two Saturdays out of three I was on my own.

Seth is growing and changing almost daily. We weighed and measured him yesterday. 25 3/4 inches long and 17 lbs. He is noticeably heavier than just a couple of weeks ago. He holds his head up well, and is very interested in objects within reach. Yesterday he reached for my glass when I was holding him. That is the first time I've seen him do that.

Cat Nap

Let me sleep just a little longer...

Mt St Helens Update

The new dome on Mt St. Helens is still growing.

A GPS "spyder package deployed earlier this week near the top of the new lava dome continues to move upward about 1.5 meters per day and to the southeast about 5 meters per day, a bit more slowly than the last GPS deployed on the dome in mid-January." - Quoted from the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory web site.

Change is a good Thing

I was reading some of my early posts and realized that a year ago we dind't yet know that we were going to have a baby. It seems as if Seth has always been a part of our lives, and yet, not that long ago, we had no idea that he would be with us.

Early on people were more than happy to tell us how much our lives would change. Well, Debbie's life has changed a lot because she is staying home from work, but I don't feel like there has been a huge amount of change. Certainly my focus is different than it used to be, and we have a lot of brightly colored plastic stuff in the house. But, all in all, I don't really feel like it has been a huge adjustment.

The best change has been seeing two smiling faces at the door when I get home from work. That alone is worth whatever little things I have given up or adjustments I have made.