Slow birding week, mostly because we haven’t gotten out much. Lise allegedly heard a screech owl in the neighborhood. I’ve been going back nightly but haven’t heard anything.
This morning we went up to Maple River State Game Area and got a yellow-throated vireo. Number 305 for me and 291 for Lise with a combined count of 307. Also saw some of the usual suspects plus warbling vireo, three immature eagles, osprey, harrier, kingfisher, wood ducks, sandhill cranes, great blue herons, and a flock of several hundred various swallow species. A real treat was watching a river otter swimming around.
There was also these swarms of these strange bugs or something swimming around on the river. I’ve never seen anything like these things. Kind of weird looking and I wasn’t about to go in the water with them. They may be some kind of mutant piranhas that see me as a side of scrapple. 
Weird bugs.
We were thinking of going further afield but I’ve been down with what appears to be some nasty allergy issues. Lise had the same condition last week. At Maple River we were walking a berm that was covered with ragweed. Ragweed pollen looks like a mace, a round ball with spikes coming out of it. Something you whack your opponent with. We ended up with it all over us. Apparently this is one of the main allergens in North America. Lucky me. The real kicker is the genus name for ragweeds is Ambrosia, which in Greek legend was the food of the gods that gave them immortality. Whoever gave ragweed the name Ambrosia had to be some kind of a sicko. I wish that person immortality with an allergy induced sinus headache and an empty box of Claratin.
Molly is back in school and doing swim team. Now every Thursday, and a lot of Saturdays, we will be sitting in hot balconies breathing in chlorine fumes. She did pretty good this last Thursday. She was anchor for her lane in the 400 freestyle relay. Her lane was in about fifth place when she went in the water and she brought them up to third place. By 0.11 seconds, but enough to give her team the third place points. Today at practice she was named swimmer of the week and given a pink leopard pattern derby for being “obnoxiously athletic.” I could be so lucky to be “obnoxiously athletic.”
Kicking butt.
Cool hat, hot girl.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 