Another non-native species on the Virgin Islands, a huge iguana.
A quick follow up on the previous post…on this day in the Virgin Islands, we had a giant iguana laying by the road, several places we had to slow down or stop because of goats in the road, and a “wild” donkey that chose our beach house yard to graze in for the day. Yes, some good birds again, but it’s the non-native species that dominate the ecology.
St. John’s, U.S. Virgin Islands. “Virgin” it is not, as it is about as unnatural a place as you can go.
One of my pet peeve lines from politicians and business people who are climate change deniers…that it is “arrogant” to think that human beings can have such a huge impact on the Earth. It is usually meant to pander to those with a religious bent, as it is often said hand in hand with comments about only “God” being able to affect that kind of change. Ridiculous, of course, when you see the astounding effects man has had on the planet.
Our effect on the planet is something you are constantly reminded of, no matter where you live. For me it was recently reinforced while on vacation. We took a family trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We have never vacationed in the Caribbean, and even after researching things to death, it’s still always a new experience when you go somewhere for the first time. There are certainly some great things to do and see there (more posts on birds there will follow!), but the big impression I have after our first visit? It’s colored with sadness over what things may have once been like there, as compared to now.
You of course have the visible human footprint. We were on St. John’s Island, but flew through St. Thomas before ferrying across. Over half of St. John’s is covered by National Park, the population is one-tenth that of St. Croix or St. Thomas. St. John’s is generally considered the more quiet and unspoiled island. There are certainly fancy, well kept up parts, but there is also a lot of very run down and impoverished areas. There is no central trash collection on St. John’s, instead there are what have turned into “drive by” trash containers where people (quite literally!) throw their trash, often from a moving car. It seems about half the trash actually makes the bin. Government seems ineffective, with incredibly high crime on St. Thomas and St. Croix (better on St.
John’s) and poor roads and services the norm. Junk is found scattered around many parts of the islands, from abandoned cars and buildings to the good ol’ plastic bottles and bags you find junking up every other part of the planet
Beyond the visible human footprint though is the altered ecology of the area. Even on the “quiet” island of St. John’s there are chickens and goats running around everywhere. “Wild” donkeys are the largest animals, followed by introduced deer. Mongoose, introduced to control introduced rats, have devastated native birds and other animals (as have rats). As a birder there are certainly some great new birds I found there, but the bird community is vastly different than it was a few hundred years ago, thanks to habitat alteration, introduced bird species, hunting, and the introduction of the mongoose and other animals.
We we had a blast snorkeling the beautiful waters around the island. Back on land though, it’s not exactly a natural, lush, island paradise.
Living in eastern South Dakota amongst the vast fields of corn and soybeans, you realize just how much of an impact man has on the Earth Sadly you see the same devastating impact even in an area such as St. John’s in the Virgin Islands. Multiply those effects for every other spot on the planet that people are found, and you quickly see the only “arrogance” comes from blowhard politicians who try to use any excuse they can to 1) get re-elected and 2) pander to short-term, money-driven interests.
Arrogance indeed…
Are you a “Kingbird” birder, for which birding is a competitive event?
I had a conversation recently with someone about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. She was talking the latest Sibley guide, and how either the Ivory-billed Woodpecker wasn’t listed at all, or it was listed but shown as “extinct” (I don’t remember which she had said). Later I thought about what she’d said and it got me a little riled up. From the moment Cornell published their materials about the Arkansas Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, Sibley criticized it. Why does that rile me up? This is the kind of reaction that for DECADES has dampened any kind of search for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, or restricted any efforts to save remaining habitat. Those who have claimed to have seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker since the 1950s have primarily been met with scorn and skepticism, rather than excitement.
Cornell had several long-time ornithologists and birders who gathered evidence about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. No, they didn’t get any clear video or photos, but the PEOPLE who reported sighting the bird certainly have the “cred” from a birding and ornithology standpoint. I certainly believe them, just as I believe the Auburn group who claimed they saw Ivory-billed Woodpeckers shortly after the Arkansas sightings. What I’ve found since I started birding 15 years ago though is that birders definitely fall in certain categories. I’ve never met David Sibley, but based on his reaction to the Cornell group and the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, I can imagine what “class” he falls into in my mind.
Let’s put it into “bird terms”. If a birder were a bird, what kind of bird would he be? Here are the general kinds of birders I’ve run across over the years:
The Peacock – Peacocks are all about appearance. How do I “look” to other birders? What is my reputation? For this class of birder, it’s less about the birds and more about their own reputation. What’s that you say, non-Peacock? You saw a rare Yellow-footed Gobbling Grouse? Pfft…I haven’t seen one, and I’m not so sure you have either!!! Besides, if you have, it can’t compare to the Whistling Chatter-billed Flycatcher that I have seen!
The Kingbird – Have you ever watched Kingbirds along a fenceline? Life seems to be a never-ending competition, fighting for every inch of fenceline. Kingbird birders view birding as a competition. Life lists, “Big Year” lists, county lists, state lists…and most importantly…how does your list compare to MY list…these are the concerns of the Kingbird. There are definitely many well-intentioned and friendly Kingbirds, for whom birding is a game, but a friendly and cordial game. The birder you need to look out for though? The Kingbird/Peacock hybrid, for which the “game” is deathly serious. Don’t invade the space of a Kingbird/Peacock hybrid…you may not come back with all your limbs intact.
The beloved “Chickadee” birder, always cheerful and willing to share their experiences.
The Chickadee – Have you ever noticed that Chickadees seem to be the “journalists” of the bird world? They’re always letting the other birds know what’s happening. OWL! DANGER! Here comes a birder! Be Alert!! Chickadee birders are cherished because they love to share what they’re experiencing. Hey birders! A Broad-butted Cuckoo was spotted along Rosie’s Creek! On the way back I saw a Pink-legged Wattlebird…here are the coordinates! For the Chickadee, a major part of the birding experience is sharing that experience with other birders, and helping them to share the same experience. A great class of birders, and one that we fortunately have many of in South Dakota.
The Yellow Rail – Have you met a Yellow Rail birder? I’m sure you have while out birding. Do you know their name? Do you know where they live, what they do for a living, what birds they’ve seen? Very doubtful. The Yellow Rail birder lives an active birding life. However, they do so in anonymity, avoiding the crowd, not publicizing any birding activity they do, not reporting their sightings. Yellow Rail/Kingbird hybrids definitely exist, birders that may obsessively “list”, but for them it’s a private activity, for which no sharing is needed. Comparing to other birders’ lists? Not important, because for a Yellow Rail, it’s all about leading a quiet, unobtrusive birding life. The Yellow Rail and the Peacock are often mortal enemies, with neither fully understanding the mindset of the other.
The Coot – How often do you see a lone Coot? Not nearly as often as you see a gaggle of Coots. For the Coot, birding is about camaraderie. Birding is a social activity, something meant to be shared. Going birding? It may also mean grabbing a beer or a bite to eat after. Coots can be either quite serious or very casual birders.
While I’m sure you can easily slot some birders you know into one of the above categories, in reality I think most birders are probably hybrids. If I had to classify myself, I’d definitely leave out the “Coot” component. For me birding is “me” time, time to be alone with my thoughts and enjoy not only the birds, but just being outside. In that respect I’m definitely part Yellow Rail in terms of wanting solitude, but I also have a lot of Chickadee in me, in that I do like sharing what I find. In that respect though I admit I probably DO have some “Peacock” in me, particularly given my fondness for sharing my photos with the world!
As for the start of the post, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and David Sibley…as I said, I’ve never met the man, but the attitude of complete disrespect and disdain for the Cornell work really turns me off.
A gravel road and vast grasslands…one of my favorite types of areas to not only bird, but just to experience. It’s becoming a rarer and rarer sight with all the recent cropland expansion in eastern and central South Dakota.
I ran across (yet another) story this morning discussing the huge loss of habitat in the northern Great Plains over the last few years. It’s not exactly “news” to anyone who has lives here and has paid attention. A bit of background…in 2007, Congress passed the “Energy Independence and Security Act”. It was a huge energy bill, with many components. One of which actually was a huge boon to my work at USGS EROS, as we became part of a huge project to look at the potential for sequestering carbon through land use practices.
However, another component is a renewable fuels standard (RFS), with hard mandates for increased use of biofuels by 2022. In recent years the price of corn has gone up substantially, in no small part due to the RFS. The result? Massive loss of grassland in my part of the world, with the Dakotas being hit especially hard.
It’s obvious everywhere I bird, both in eastern South Dakota (which has traditionally been a stronghold of corn production), and now increasingly in central South Dakota. In eastern South Dakota where I live, the only remaining grasslands are 1) those that are on hilly or very rocky ground, areas too difficult to farm, or 2) individual fields that are enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). CRP provides payments for farmers to keep land in a grassland cover around here, but those payments can’t compete with the profits that can be made by putting arable land into corn production. I can point to numerous individual fields just on my drive to work that used to be CRP, and had been grassland ever since I moved here over 20 years ago, that have been plowed under and converted to cropland in just the last few years.
The further west you go in the state, the more iffy a proposition it is to grow dryland corn. The Missouri River dividing the state into “East River” and “West River” used to be a rough dividing line on where corn was grown. Rainfall in South Dakota is a gradient from west to east, with precipitation dropping as you move westward in the state. One of my favorite birding locations in the winter is around the Presho area. It’s an area with a lot of grasslands and a lot of pheasants (and presumably voles and mice), creatures that attract a lot of winter raptors like Rough-legged Hawks, Ferruginous Hawks, and even the occasional Gyrfalcon or Snowy Owl. As a drier area than eastern South Dakota, cropland used to be limited to wheat, some sorghum, and sunflowers. Not any more, as you’re starting to see farmers attempt to grow dryland corn even there.
It’s not just the conversion of complete, large fields from grassland to cropland that you’re seeing, it’s land management practices and micro-scale habitat loss. From a land management standpoint, the other business that’s booming right now in the Dakotas is the installation of drain tile, underground piping that efficiently drains the land and allows farmers to utilize areas that once tended to collect too much water for cultivation. One of my favorite little birding spots on my drive to work is now gone, thanks to drain tiling. It was a low spot along a little drainage way, a moist area that had a grassland and some scattered cattails. That area was drain tiled and is now a corn field. From the micro-habitat side, farmers are also ripping out vegetation along fencerows and shelterbelts, trying to squeeze out every acre they can as crop prices are high.
To be frank, it’s damned depressing sometimes to drive around birding, seeing some of your favorite remaining grassland habitats being actively plowed under. It’s a level of land-use conversion in the northern Great Plains that hasn’t been seen in many decades.
Especially as a father, I can’t help but think “when does it end”? When do people stop thinking about MONEY, and their short-term well-being, and when do they actually start worrying about their CHILDREN’s future? It’s not just habitat loss, it’s sabotage of the very resources we need to survive. Increased agricultural land use, drain tiling existing land, and increased fertilizer use as farmers try to bypass crop rotation and plant exclusively corn…all are pumping up nitrate and other pollutant levels in the very water supplies we depend upon to survive.
I tell myself, that just as with the inexorable spread of urban areas across the world, it can’t continue forever, right? At some point, it has to stop, right? The only problem is that human beings are too short-sighted to set that “limit” of when we stop degrading and destroying habitat and the resources we depend upon. What’s going to eventually make it “stop” is ecological disaster…
This is a range map for the Pine Siskin. The closest they’re supposed to be to here this time of year would be northern Minnesota or the Black Hills.
My office has been under construction for nearly 2 months now, and my temporary office is, uh…not ideal. It’s an open cube, shared with 2 other people, 6 feet from the bathroom doors. Lovely…and hard to work when you’re used to your own office with a door you can shut. Because of that, I’ve been working at home most of the time.
I had an unexpected surprise today while working at home. I went into the kitchen to get a drink, looked out the patio doors at the thistle (niger) feeder, and saw a Pine Siskin. June 2nd? A Pine Siskin in southeast South Dakota? It wasn’t even something on my radar, so I had to do a double take, and check it out at close range just to be sure. Pine Siskins are something you’d only expect in the winter around here, and even though they can be pretty locally common, I rarely get them at my feeders.
The map above shows the supposed range for a Pine Siskin. Strange! A nice surprise, and actually after checking my eBird list for the year, I hadn’t seen one yet this year. June 2nd…not the date I’d expect to see my first Pine Siskin here!
Male Blue Grosbeak. These guys are scattered around in southern South Dakota, but it’s always a bit of a surprise when you run across one. Yesterday west of Lake Thompson I saw three in one small area.
Eastern South Dakota was once >95% grassland and scattered wetlands. Trees were limited to riparian areas or pockets where the landscape was protected from the tree-killing effects of fire, and of course, there used to be no agriculture or urban land use. Now of course the story is completely reversed, as pockets of unbroken grassland are rare in many parts of the state, as cropland has become the dominant land use. In an area where grassland used to be king, it can now be quite difficult to find some of the traditional grassland bird species.
For some species, such as Sharp-tailed Grouse, they’re forever gone from most of eastern South Dakota. For other bird species, they’re found scattered in pockets of remaining suitable habitat. Right around Sioux Falls, there simply isn’t a lot of grassland. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) does provide farmer payments in multi-year contracts in return for keeping the land in a grassland cover, but in recent years, CRP has sharply declined in the Dakotas, with the demand for corn and soy driving extensive expansion of cropland at the expense of what pockets of grassland remain. For birds like Bobolinks, Grasshopper Sparrows, and Upland Sandpipers, you’ll occasionally find one in a small remaining pocket of grassland, but there’s very little in the way of a “go-to” for place for birds, with extensive grassland, right around Sioux Falls.
Male Bobolink. Kind of a scruffy looking dude, but nice to get so close to one as they’re normally shy for me. These guys were numerous where I went birding yesterday.
In South Dakota, the three counties where I bird the most are Minnehaha (where I live), Lincoln (just a few miles south), and…Kingsbury County. Kingsbury County isn’t even adjacent to Minnehaha or Lincoln county…in fact it’s well over an hour drive to even get to the edge of Kingsbury County. The attraction of Kingsbury County for me is two-fold. Lake Thompson is the largest natural lake in South Dakota,and the region has extensive open water, shallow water habitats, mudflats, and wetlands. The other attraction for me is the west side of Lake Thompson. There are some very large cattle operations in the area, and instead of cropland, much of the land is kept as grassland and pasture. There are also large areas of alfalfa fields. Unlike many pastures around here that are overgrazed to the point of erosion becoming a problem, the land in this area seems pretty well managed, with a mix of taller grasslands and (seemingly) responsibly grazed grasslands.
The result is one of the best areas I know in the general vicinity for finding grassland birds. I drove the area yesterday on a GORGEOUS, sunny, cool day, and was just reveling in the sounds and sights. There’s one particular road that’s now closed due to fluctuating water levels on Lake Thompson itself. The road gets no traffic and isn’t maintained much anymore, but it’s no problem for my little pickup. No people, some very nice grassland habitat, and some wonderful birds. This is one of the few places around here where I can reliably find Upland Sandpipers. If you go to the central part of the state, Upland Sandpipers are seemingly on every other fence post in the big grassland areas. You just don’t see them all that often in much of eastern South Dakota, so it’s always a treat to find them here.
Orchard Oriole male. Never have I seen such a concentration of Orchard Orioles as I do in this area west of Lake Thompson. Such beautiful little birds, an oriole many folks may not even know are around here.
Singing Bobolinks are another big attraction for me for this area. I sometimes see (and hear) Bobolinks right around Sioux Falls, but it’s nearly always a single bird, trying to utilize a small remaining piece of pasture or an alfalfa field. On the west side of Lake Thompson you hear them singing everywhere…one of my favorite sounds in the world, with their long, tinkly songs. Both Eastern and Western Kingbirds are numerous, seemingly always fighting for fenceline foraging and perching rights. It’s a place where I see Orchard Orioles in numbers I’ve never seen elsewhere. The bug-like calls of Grasshopper Sparrows sound out from their hidden perches, as do the buzzy songs of Clay-colored Sparrows. It’s the same kind of experience you sometimes find in areas of extensive grasslands in the central part of the state, such as on the Fort Pierre National Grasslands, but it’s so much closer to home.
A wonderful day! I just hope the land in that area continues to be managed as it is right now, and that it too doesn’t succumb to the ever expanding cropland in the area.
A young white-tailed deer fawn. He clearly wanted mom, given how he kept looking around and bleating for her.
Ever since I got my first SLR camera 15 years ago, I’d say 98% of the photos I’ve taken have been of birds. When I go birding, as I did this afternoon, I have binoculars and camera in hand, and birds on my mind. On rare occasions, I’ll note some spectacular landscape and take a photo, but it has to be pretty spectacular! After all, if I want to shoot a landscape, I have to change lenses…WAY too much trouble for a bird photographer! One of the fringe benefits of going out birding though IS running into unexpected sights, be it a beautiful landscape or some creature that happens to cross your path. If I get a good opportunity to shoot an animal other than a bird, I will generally do it, unless it’s something really common. I usually don’t give a second thought to all the deer I run across, given how common they are. But today was something different.
As I turned on a gravel road, there on the side of the road in front of me was a tiny, spotted White-tailed Deer fawn. With all the deer I’ve seen, it’s not often I see young fawns, and I had absolutely no photos of them until today. When I turned the corner, he looked at me and gave a little bleat. I got the camera in hand, fully expecting him to run before I could get a photo, but…he just stood there, and gave another bleat. I took a number of photos while he looked around, occasionally bleating, but he didn’t move more than a few steps.
I’m sure he was calling for mom, but despite watching the little guy/gal for 15 minutes or so, I never saw the mother deer. He slowly meandered off into a grassy area before laying down, although I could still occasionally hear him bleating from his now hidden location.
It’s tough out there for a little guy! As I drove away I couldn’t help but feel a little worried about him, hoping his mom came back soon.
Satellite image of the Salton Sea area. The patterns above and below the lake are the massive agricultural lands that have built up since diversion of the Colorado River to the area in the 1900s. The tan color everywhere else? Desert. As Mother Nature is showing us recently, there is a price to be paid for trying to maximize short-term profit and make the desert temporarily “bloom”.
Sometimes Mother Nature gives us a reminder of how much we’ve screwed up the planet. That’s certainly happening right now in the western U.S., with an extreme drought serving to highlight human mismanagement of both water and land use in the region. While most of the focus has been on urban and agricultural water limitations, there’s also an impact on wildlife.
The Salton Sea is the largest lake in California. It also didn’t even exist until 1905, at least not in recorded history in the West. The Colorado River has long been an overused water source for a water-thirsty West, and in 1905 an accidental break in canals diverting water from the Colorado River resulted in two years of ALL Colorado River water flowing into the Salton Sea basin. Since its formation, it has sporadically served as a resort destination, extremely productive fishery, and habitat for millions of migratory birds.
What’s that you say? Habitat for millions of birds, and a bird crazy person like myself is saying “good riddance” to the Salton Sea? Yes, without reservation. The basin holding the Salton Sea HAS occasionally naturally filled with water over the past several thousand years, but the accident that created the current version of the Sea was anything but natural. Before settlement of the West, the Colorado River flowed into the Gulf of California, creating a vast delta where it entered the ocean. Once California, Nevada, and Arizona started diverting water from the Colorado, those flows to the ocean diminished, to the point that NO water from the Colorado regularly reaches the Gulf of California anymore. A planned pulse of water was allowed to reach the Gulf in 2014, but other than that, water has only sporadically (and rarely) reached the Gulf since the 1950s.
The Colorado River’s delta has long since dried up, taking with it the natural habitat that was once found there. Has the Salton Sea been a boon to bird life in the West? Perhaps, although it’s hard to judge the tradeoff of creating the Salton Sea, but losing the Colorado Delta and riparian habitat associated with the Colorado River. What everybody agrees on is that as the Salton Sea continues to shrink, there are serious health and environmental issues that are likely to occur. The boom days of the Salton Sea are long past. The resorts are gone, and the now extremely salty water is only able to support Tilapia, who themselves are now subject to periodic fish kills due to poor water conditions. Diverted water from the Colorado continues to enable agriculture in the region, but as the recent drought is showing, there simply isn’t enough water to go around in the West.
“Fixing” the Salton Sea would again require diverting massive amounts of water from the Colorado River. There simply isn’t enough of a water resource to support the Salton Sea, the Colorado Delta, and a booming human footprint in the West. And so I say…good riddance to the Salton Sea, IF it means restoring natural flows to the Colorado Delta and Gulf of California. Yes, there will be health and environmental issues to deal with in the aftermath of the demise of the Salton Sea. But as Mother Nature has again reminded us with the western drought, there are consequences for only thinking about short-term economic gain and human well-being, and failing to consider sustainability and long-term consequences.
Sora, one that’s not hard to “count” around here if you go by sound. It’s another matter to see one, much less get a good photo. This is from late April.
I’ve never been a huge “lister”, at least in the formal sense. I know what birds I’ve seen, but I really haven’t ever kept a written list anywhere. Photos? Yeah, I definitely know how many bird species I have photos of. I keep a spreadsheet to organize my photos, with species, date, and location. I have photos for 415 species, all in North America (I haven’t traveled outside of North America during my time birding).
For species I’ve actually seen? I have a rough guess of around 480, just based on the number of of species photos I have. The problem is that I’ve never kept track of species that I’ve seen, but not photographed! Hooded Warbler? Check! Baikal Teal? Check! Even something as common in South Dakota as a Prairie Chicken? Check! I’ve seen them all, but have no photos.
If eBird would have existed when I started birding 15 years ago, I would definitely have an exact count. I’m not just talking my lifetime bird list, I’m talking my “South Dakota List”, my “Minnehaha County List”, my “2008 List”, etc. It’s a wonderful tool for not only contributing to ornithology studies, but also for listing. Since I really started using eBird a couple of years ago, I’ve entered 419 species, including 277 in South Dakota.
One of the interesting aspects of eBird is that you can get your “ranking”, in comparison to other birders in your area. I can see who has the most sightings in South Dakota, in my county, in the U.S. as a whole, or even who has the most “yard birds” in their life. It’s pure genius to me that Cornell includes these features in eBird. Given how (annoyingly sometimes!) competitive birders can be, seeing how you rank against others in your area is a good way to spur more eBird sightings!
This year I decided I would track how many species I see in South Dakota, for several reasons. First, I’ve never done it, and was curious how many the number might be in one year. Secondly, if you’ve birded for a while, seeing your 1,987th Common Nighthawk may not be that exciting, but I admit it IS satisfying to mentally and physically cross it off your list for the year, the first time you see one.
A species that screams SPRING to me, an Ovenbird. So nice to hear them singing when they arrive in May. Another you normally hear before you see it. Ovenbird was around bird #160 for the year.
It’s May 26th, and the count for the year is (drumroll please…) 193 species seen in South Dakota. That’s many more than I thought I’d have seen by this date. If you include every rarity ever seen in South Dakota, even if there’s only one recorded instance, there are about 435 “South Dakota species”. Recording 193 of them in less than 5 months seems pretty good to me, particularly since I haven’t traveled at all in the western part of the state, where many species can be found that can’t be found in the eastern half of South Dakota. It’s also good from the standpoint that I haven’t seen much in the way of “mega rarities”, which means I’ve seen a good majority of the species you’d expect to see over the course of the year.
The downside? Well, if you’d have asked me on January 1st whether I’d take 193 species by May 26th, I’d have definitely said yes! However, 193 puts me in a mere SEVENTH place in South Dakota right now! SEVENTH!!! The highest totals right now are around 220 species. Does that bother me? I admit it kind of does! I have REALLY birded much more this spring than in the past several years, and thought I was doing pretty good! Evidently there are even kookier bird nuts out there than me!!
CURSE YOU eBIRD, for bringing to light my birding inadequacies!!! If it weren’t for eBird, I’d be quite merry with my 193 total!!
No birds! No birding! The magical birding month of May, and a whole week without either! An unthinkable circumstance in nearly any situation!
This past week was indeed a rare May week for me where I did absolutely no birding, and it was definitely for a good reason. My son was competing in the World Finals of the “Odyssey of the Mind” competition in East Lansing, Michigan all week. Their team finished first in state for the right to compete in the World Finals, and it was our first time doing so. It was well worth a birdless week, even for a bird nut such as myself!
If you’re not familiar with Odyssey of the Mind, it’s billed as a ‘creative competition’. It consists of two parts. First, there are typically 6 problems presented to the kids many months before the competition starts. The kids choose one of the problems, and come up with a short skit that represents their solution to the problem. The second component is called “Spontaneous”, where at the competition itself, the team is presented a problem and are only given a few minutes to come up with a solution.
The World Finals brought 847 teams from across the globe to compete, including teams from Togo, Switzerland, Poland, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, South Korea, Great Britain, Germany, and more. Michigan State campus was pretty much owned by the kids these weeks, including all the dorms where the kids and parents stayed. One big highlight for our kids…they signed up for a “buddy team” and were given a team from Japan. What an incredible experience. We saw each other’s presentations, hung out in the dorms with them, and ate with them. A highlight was a formal Japanese tea ceremony, where the kids on our team were each individually, formally served tea, and then were taught to perform the ceremony for each of the Japanese boys!
A wonderful experience, and DEFINITELY worth a birdless week! I’m back now though…where are those binoculars… 😉