Shorebird Survey

Every Saturday morning I drive out to the open beaches along Highway 98 between Beasley Park and Eglin Beach, set up my scope, and survey the birds. I talley how many I see and what species they are, noting the condition they are in.

This is an effort created by the National Audubon Society to survey the birds in the areas that are affected by the BP oil spill.

Birders are assigned areas all along the Gulf Coast. As we survery the birds at the same time each Saturday in our designated area we are getting a snap shot of the birds in our area and their status.

This has been lots of fun. Hard work. And a great learning experience. I will be doing this until we move in October....

Oil spill update; June 17, 2010

Well, I went to the beach today, just to take a peek, and I find tar balls. I used 3 commas in that sentence, I'm quite proud. The tar balls were small and sticky and they stuck to the bottom of our flip flops like we stepped on raisins.

There is this sense of impending doom that hangs over everyone here in the Gulf. This huge amount of oil, gushing out of the bottom of the sea, with no end in site. My heart is broken. We are frustrated and anxious to do something...anything. Pick up a shovel, clean an animal, donate money...but we can't do any of that. BP will pay for anything and everything so money is not needed. We can't clean the beach or the animals without proper HAZMAT training. I signed up for it, but can never get into a class.

So poo. All I can do is watch, and cry, and remain frustrated.

2010

I hate blogging. I really do. But I am embracing technology, or in this case, letting it clinge to my leg as I walk around the house. Bleh. But.... my family needs more updates on the boys, more pics, more videos, more more more. And since we are a military family and hardly able to visit, I must oblige. Sooooooo (a needle pulling thread) I will be updating and *cough* blogging on here more often.