Hot, hot, hot!!!!!!!! The temperature, not the birding. We spent the past hot week cooking in Delaware on a family vacation. Lindsay braved a vacation with us and managed to survived too.
Delaware birding was good for Lise. She made a big jump in her count, getting 26 new species. The only new one I got was Northern bobwhite quail. Our counts now stand at 278 for me, 266 for Lise and a combined count of 281. We got most of Lise’s target species. We missed a couple like boat-tailed grackle and fish crow. Missing the fish crow surprised me since they are generally common around the coast. Maybe the heat kept them down. It was beastly hot.
This was a family vacation so we did lots of beachy vacation kinds of things. Got in some kayaking and the Rehobeth fireworks. Molly and Lindsay did the Rehobeth boardwalk a number of times, hit the Cape Henlopen beach a couple times, and did a marathon Putt-Putt golf session with Anita. They went to Ocean City and played six games of carbohydrate fueled Putt-Putt. In the high heat. Lindsay turns out to be a Putt-Putt ringer. Scored five hole-in-ones in a single game.
Molly finding out that cell phones don’t like the ocean.
Lindsay and Molly on the boardwalk Funland Paratrooper.
The Funland Paratrooper demonstrating what it does to your mind and your guts.
Yucking it up on July 4, waiting for the fireworks.
The day they did Putt-Putt, Lise and I did most of our birding. The morning started in the high eighties and climbed into the high nineties. Compare that to when we did the Sault Ste. Marie trip and the starting temperature was below zero. That gives us over a hundred degree Fahrenheit temperature swing for birding. Not sure which is better. The cold makes you physically hurt and it’s difficult doing anything wearing bulky clothing and gloves. The heat doesn’t make you hurt but you can feel real sticky and uncomfortable. Then add in the biting insects that come with the heat. Bombay Hook had these nasty green-headed flies that drew blood when they bit you. These bastards treated DEET like a nice Cabernet. “Look Louie, a couple of pasty white Northerners nicely basted in DEET. Dinner is served.” Might be time to take up a new hobby like darts or indoor glow-in-the-dark black light Putt-Putt.
I got a little time in to do chase dragonflies. I had a pair of slatey skimmers fly right in front of my face to nab a bug just off my nose. The male nabbed the bug and landed then the female landed on his back. He didn’t share. Getting amber wing pictures was tough. These guys are common but very skittish. If you are three feet away and move your hand they fly off.
Slatey skimmer pair.
Slatey skimmer male.
Eastern amberwing.
Eastern amberwing trying to cool off.
Thursday my sister Anita took off a day and we did a trip to Washington DC. Hit the National Zoo and the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Got to see the live panda at the National Zoo and the stuffed one at the Natural History Museum. The live one was a lot more interesting. I wanted to do the Air and Space Museum but Lindsay vetoed it because that was “only something that guys are interested in.” I’m sure Beryl Markham, Amelia Earhart, and Sally Ride would have something to say about that but I acquiesced. It ain’t easy being outnumbered four to one. Not enough Y chromosomes in the family.
Lindsay and Molly do the Zoo.
Deviant behavior at the zoo.
DC is one of those places I could spend a lot more time than a single day. To think that we have great places like the Zoo, the Smithsonian, and the National Mall with no admittance fee. All accessible by public transportation too. We picked up the Metro at the New Carrollton station way east of DC proper. Worked great for us. The next day the Metro had slow downs and a derailment related to the heat but it worked great for us.
Molly and Lindsay on the Metro.
The heat knocked out walking around the mall. We each went through quarts of water. This was like desert hiking with the opportunity to be mugged. Which reminds me of my favorite boardwalk T-shirt saying for the trip. “Bring a compass. It gets awkward when you have to start eating your friends.”
Did I mention it was hot at the zoo?
We did some great eating. Local blue crabs were in season. This is eating as performance art. Getting up close and personal with your food. Dissection with a wooden mallet. The best place for crabs is a little place called The Surfing Crab. All the ambiance of a prison dining hall. Cement floors, painted cinder block walls, long picnic tables covered with brown paper and you don’t know who you will be sharing a table with. But crabs so sweet you go looking for every small shard of meat. 
Crabs before dissection by mallet.
Crabs after dissection by mallet.
Lots of other great stick to your ribs food too. Which really means stick to your arteries food. This is the first time I have ever seen a scrapple croissant sandwich. Kind of a sacred and profane thing. Not something you’ll get with a croissant in Paris I bet. To top things off we brought back 150 clams from Delaware and then hit Weaver’s in the Lebanon Farmers Market for a block of scrapple, two pounds of Lebanon bologna, and 40 pounds of smoked bacon. Don’t get much better than that.
Fresh roasted coffee and a scrapple croissant at the Lewes Bake Shoppe.
We used to hit Weaver’s once or twice a year at a farm market in Lancaster County. They have since moved to the Lebanon Farmers Market, much more convenient for us. On our way to Delaware we swung by the market o pick up some food for the trip. I asked if they would have 40 pounds of bacon available the next week. The manager scribbled down my name to make sure they would have it. Sure enough, the next Saturday they had 40 pounds of bacon packed into two boxes with the note that had my name scribbled on it. A couple hundred dollars in meat and they didn’t ask for a deposit or a credit card number. Essentially business on a handshake. It’s been a while since I’ve dealt with someone that didn’t require a credit card number or a DNA sample before committing to something.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 