Giant Things of Oaks, PA

I just remembered I still have a blog, such as it is. 

And one of my most favorite-ist blog post categories ever is Giant Things. Go ahead. Search the Bill of the Birds archives and let the wonders fill your eyes. And your nightmares.

This beauty of a Giant Thing is in Oaks, Pennsylvania, standing outside an indoor amusement park and immediately adjacent to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, where we just held the third-annual American Birding Expo. My guess is Ol' Jughead used to be holding a wrench or some other sort of tool, advertising a car repair center. Now he's standing, empty handed, on the edge of a parking lot, next to his buddy, Life-size Giraffe.

Lifesize Giraffe and extraneous minutiae.

Ben and I spied the Giant Things and had to hold an impromptu photo session. We like to get selfies for use with our "Out There Wth the Birds" podcast. Check out episode 21 in which we walk the aisles of the 2017 Expo, talking to ourselves and others.

No, Ben is not head butting Jughead in the photo above.

Later in the weekend, the Expo staff from Bird Watcher's Digest, along with two of our super volunteers, Ann Hannon and Jessica Melfi, struck a pose with Juggers.

You can find these Giant Things for yourself, when you come to NEXT YEAR'S EXPO, September 21 to 23, 2018, at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center.

If you come, we can take a selfie!

My Upcoming Birding Events this Winter!

This year is the last year that our daughter Phoebe will be living full-time in the home nest. She'll be off to college somewhere fabulous in the fall and I was motivated to try my best to stay home more often this year to hang around with The Pheebster. I probably should have asked HER about this, since she's leading the never-stop life of a high-school senior and is rarely at home. Nevertheless, I turned down a number of opportunities to travel and a handful of speaking gigs at festivals.

But I'm STILL hitting the road quite a bit and here are some of the upcoming what's, when's, and where's, through January 2014.

There won't be any Philly vireos present when I'm in Philly speaking to the DVOC.

DVOC Annual Banquet • Philadephia, PA • November 21, 2013
I'm the annual banquet speaker for the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) on Thursday, November 21. This venerable Philadelphia-area bird club traces its origins back to the 1880s. Its list of previous annual banquet speakers reads like a who's who of American birding. It's an honor to give a presentation to this group. I'm giving the "Perils and Pitfalls of Birding" talk, so I hope I can get a chuckle or two from the crowd. Registration details are here.

Giant flocks of sandhill cranes will be filling the skies at Wings Over Willcox.

Wings over Willcox • Willcox, Arizona • January 15–19, 2014
I think I know why the acronym of this event is WOW. It's probably the thousands of sandhill cranes that winter in this region, plus all the waterfowl. Or maybe because, despite being held in mid-winter, Wings Over Willcox always has a bird list of about 140 species. I'm giving a talk and attending a wine dinner and I'm looking forward to helping out on a few field trips. Get WOW info here.

Limpkins are fairly easy to see at Viera Wetlands during the Space Coast Birding Festival.

Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival • Titusville, Florida • January 22–27, 2014
This down-home event along Florida's central Atlantic coast seems to grow larger every year in terms of programming offered, field trips, and number of attendees. It's become one of the must-do birding festivals because the birding is great, the vendor hall is filled to bursting, there's great seafood to be eaten, and let's face it, Florida is a fine place to be in late January if you live anywhere on the planet that still has winter. I'm not speaking at this year's event, but I'll be there manning the Bird Watcher's Digest booth and I'm a co-leader on a couple of field trips. If you've never been, perhaps this is your year: http://www.spacecoastbirdingandwildlifefestival.org/

Ibi in the sunset at Merritt Island NWR.

That's it people. I'll see you out there with the birds!