Music, Poetry, and Birds

The 5th annual Ohio Ornithological Society meeting is taking place this weekend, up in the Oak Openings/Magee Marsh region of northwestern Ohio. Today was GREAT for birds: migrants swarmed in last night and there was excellent numbers and diversity. In just little more than a half-day of birding, our crew assembled a list of about 120 species, including 24 species of warblers. Everyone is venturing back out tomorrow, and a number of new species will be added.

But, a brief report on Friday night's festivities. Our conference hub is the interesting Holiday Inn-Franch Quarter in Perrysburg, and we had an informal Shadegrown Coffee Conservation Fest for those who arrived early. It was an open mike gig, with impromptu bird-related poetry readings interspersed with live jams by the one and only Bill Thompson III, doing business as BT3.

Sounds kind of hokey, and maybe it was, but we had a blast. Here, OOS treasurer Peter King reads A Feather from the Whip-poor-will, by Emily Dickinson. BT3 laughs and taunts Peter for compromising his manhood. No, not really - we were just amused by his smooth delivery. I, myself, read several poems, too, I am happy to report, as did many others.

Kathi Hutton, aka "Katdoc", was the prime instigator and arranger of the festivities, along with Cheryl Harner, who was chief organizer of the conference and did a bang-up job. Katdoc, above, recites a poem of some sort - it may be the one in which she pokes more than a bit of fun at BT3 and myself. Thanks, thanks a lot Katdoc for making us go red with embarassment :-)

A snippet of Bill cranking out The Talking Head's Take me to the River, which became a sing-along. Great stuff, and he had lots more up his sleeve. We had a blast, and tonight was equally fun. I am beat - it's 1 am and the bus leaves early tomorrow, but I'll put up some more stuff from the weekend later.

We try to have a lot of fun at these conferences, and if you've not been to one, we'd love to have you join us sometime. Great birds and birding, good people, and lots of fun are pretty much assured. Try and make the next big blowout - the Godzilla of birding events: the Midwest Birding Symposium. You won't want to miss that!