Caption Contest #21

Yes, kids, it's time once again for another Bill of the Birds Caption Contest. Use the comment interface of this blog to submit your clever caption for the photo above and, if your entry is selected as the winner, you will receive a fabulous prize: a collector's edition copy of the ultra-rare, best-selling bird book Bird Watching For Dummies autographed by the author (if we can find him and get him sobered up enough to make his mark).

Back story: This photo shows Julie Zickefoose (left) and Wendy Eller (in blue jacket) performing a Rain Crows' song during my recent milestone birthday celebration. Backing the gals were members of The Realbillies (not shown) from Athens, Ohio. There was a stuffed black bear in the corner of the stage area and a friend took this photograph with my camera. I think the image opens up a world of caption possibilities and I cannot wait to see what y'all come up with!

Deadline is Tuesday March 20, 2012. Now start bruin up some funny captions!

Day of Days: March 3

Today is my 48th birthday. Funny, I don't feel a day over 50.

Taking inventory today I find I can make the following statements with complete confidence:

• My sense of humor stopped maturing somewhere around 16.
• I went running today and made it about 3/4 of a mile before Nick Nolte's voice came into my head, saying "I'm too old for this $#!+"
• It's worth it to get up each day to watch the sun rise.
• Being rich with blessings is better than just being rich (never having actually been rich, I guess this is more of a hypothesis....)
• I like what I do and I [try to] do what I like
• I think you can buy T-shirts that say that
• Music feeds me better than any food (except for my mom's cherry-custard pie, which totally kicks culinary butt)
• My hair is growing well, but in all the wrong places
• The aches and pains of growing old are simply there to remind you that you are still among the living.
• I love the company of my family of friends and the love of my own little family
  

I'd like to send out some special birthday wishes to my fellow March 3 celebrants:
Ron Tuffel
Valerie Butler
Su Snyder
Holly G. Wallinger
King John II of Portugal (I think this is for whom the Porta John is named)
Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Alexander Graham "Cracker" Bell
John Montgomery "Monkey" Ward
Charles "The Scheme" Ponzi
Jean "The Original Hotness" Harlow
Doc "Guitar" Watson
Gudrun Pausewang (perhaps the BEST name EVER!)
"Who will?" Lee Radziwill
Lys Assia (second best name ever)
Perry Ellis
Snowy White
Robyn Hitchcock
Zico
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Herschel Walker
Tone Loc
Brian Leetch
Matt Diaz (Let's Go BUCS!)
Seomoon Tak
Li'l Flip
Jessica Biel
and my special birthday pal John "George Peppard" Kogge

I plan to celebrate with a day of writing (book, blog [check!], and song), loads of my fave food, perhaps a frosty-cold bevvy, and a long walk (with birding) around the farm. Thanks to all my friends over at Facebook for the wishes of the day, for the direct notes I've gotten. Hugs to Julie for her always-sweet annual birthday post.

The biggest thanks of the day goes to my mom, Elsa Ekenstierna Thompson, for giving me this life. And to my dad, Bill Thompson, Jr., whom I miss so very much.

The Birthday Chimp Self-Actualizes

Julie Zickefoose with a hatchling leatherback turtle

Today, July 24, is Julie Zickefoose's birthday. Last night, in a full-on assault on commemorating her special day, our band of birders went to Matura Beach here in Trinidad, to witness the nesting of the leatherback turtles. Being the Science Chimp that she is, this was a BIG DEAL to Zick.

Here are photos to document her night spent communing with these giants of the sea. We started off with a few hatchlings which the turtle nest monitors let us hold and examine. Then we walked up the beach to watch several adult females dig nests in the sand and lay their eggs. It was a magical experience and a good way to spend a birthday.

Zick got to see the laying female up close. Every so often she would grunt. By 'she,' of course, I mean the adult female leatherback turtle.

While the female turtles lay their eggs, they go into a kind of torpor where almost nothing will disturb them. During these minutes, it's possible to touch the turtles. Once the laying stops, so do the close human/turtle encounters


Special thanks to Jeff Bouton from Leica Sport Optics, for inviting us to visit Asa Wright and Trinidad on this Leica-sponsored trip.

Happy birthday, Jules!

Phoebe: My Favorite Bird

This is a tribute to my favorite little bird and the sweetest daughter a Dad could ever have: Phoebe Linnea Thompson. Phoebe turns 13 today—yep, she's a teenager.





But I'm not worried. Phoebe is smart, deep, caring, sweet, really funny, and lovely. And every day she gets more so.

She can be tough as nails, hanging with her homey, Liam.

She's not afraid to take a wild ride.


Or to let us know when we've been out birding for WAY too long.


She's a truly kind big sister to Liam, who adores her. They miss each other when they're apart.


Since she was 18 months old, Phoebe has been traveling with us. She's a really good traveler.


She's a dreamer, like her old man.

She loves a good adventure, like a hike into a canyon to see petroglyphs, as the sun is setting over the Montana mountains.

But she also loves to hike at home on our farm. I love that she's waking up to the amazing things nature has to offer. And she's happy exploring them on her own. She gets that "comfortable in solitude thing" from her mom. And that's a rare gift.

I hope she follows her folks into music, too. She's starting down that path. My secret wish is for Phoebe to front her own rock band called Six Foot Redhead. She's only got about 7 more inches to grow.

A week before her 13th birthday, Phoebe got a new bike. She's scarcely been off it ever since.


I don't know where I'd be without my Phoebe. Sometimes I think my life really started the day she was born.

I love you, Phee!
-Da

First Day on a New Continent

I am in the Philippines on a familiarization tour for birders. I am the only U.S. birder along on this trip with a whole mess of British bird watchers. We've had a good time, despite our many cultural, lingual, and intellectual differences.

We spent much of March 3 birding at Subic Bay, the site of the former U.S. Naval base. I'll post in more detail about the trip in the coming weeks, but for now, a few images from my first day on a new continent: Asia.

We were greeted by school-age dancers who performed a show they'd done earlier in the year for the local bird festival. The Candaba Wetlands are an amazing foraging and stopover point for migrant shorebirds, waders, and waterfowl. I arrived in the Philippines a half-day later than expected and only got to Candaba in time to pack up and leave for Subic.

That night we had a welcome dinner at a fancy restaurant on Subic Bay called The Lighthouse. My friends had a surprise for me: they knew about my birthday and the hotel made me a cheesecake! The lounge singers sang Happy Birthday to me, too, which was really fun.


It's great to have the chance to travel to new places to see birds. It's even better to make new friends and enjoy the company of existing friends while you're traveling after birds.

I'm trying to appreciate each moment and to count those many blessings.

I'd share some bird pix here, but have yet to download what I've taken.
More posts soon, I promise!

Happy Birdday!

All hail the cherry-custard birthday pie.

Growing up in the Thompson family (even though my mom always said my "real" father was J. Paul Getty) you got to design a dinner menu of your favorite foods for your birthday dinner. Every year on my birthday for as long as I can recollect, I'd eat two of my favorite things: barbecued spare ribs and my mom's cherry-custard pie. I have been known to go to extreme lengths to eat these foods on my special natal day. Or to enjoy them as near to it as I possibly can.

Several years recently I've been in Guatemala on my birthday, birding with my friends from there and visiting from the U.S. In those years, I substituted Guatemalan food for the ribs and Gallo cerveza for the pie. As soon as I got home, we'd have the March Thompson family birthdays, and I'd get my fave foods.

This year I'll be away again, so my dear mother baked me the world's most amazing pie early, and I ate two pieces for breakfast this morning (time shift acknowledgment, I am writing this on March 1 for posting on March 3). OH MY LORDY THAT'S GOOD PIE.... and if you were here, reaching for the last piece or even for a bit of the crust left on my plate, I'd warn you about losing a limb. My mom makes the word's best pie crust, there's just no debate.

My mom sometimes burns the birthday pie to appease the dark kitchen gods.

So happy bird day to my fellow March thirders: John Kogge, Ron Tuffel, Valerie Butler, Holly Wallinger, Ton Loc, Alexander Graham Bell, Jessica Biel, Jean Harlow, Snowy White, Robyn Hitchcock, Ira Glass, Jackie Joyner-Kersee (same year!), Herschel Walker (same year!), Seomoon Tak, and L'il Flip.

And thanks to Catbird, mi madre, for the pie! I love you!

—#1 Son.

BOTB and Elsa "Catbird" Thompson

Happy Birthday to Zick!

Happy Birthday to the Science Chimp of Indigo Hill!
Wishing you many more!

love,
B (otb)