Well, we made it back in time last night to watch the Fabulous Lorraine play with Bedlam at Keiran's Irish Pub last night and this morning I'm back to the grind at the bird store and sifting through email that I avoided during the few times I scanned webmail.

While wading through important messages (spam) from the likes of Summerhouse A. Ventriloquism and Howl O. Vacillation I discovered that some great birds are being seen around Minnesota and one of my very own employees, Bob Janssen (the sweet birding grandpa I always wanted) got his 400th Minnesota bird in the form of a white-winged dove. There is also a brown pelican that is a first state record for Minnesota--here I have been watching them all week from the beach and a brown pelican is right here in my home state. For directions to both birds, check the MOU-net archives.

I have also learned that raccoons most likely abetted by a red squirrel having been reeking havoc on a couple of Mr. Neil's bird feeders. Somehow, someone has given them my travel itinerary and they are waging a full on attack while I am incapable of traveling out there to rearrange and recitify the situation. But when I get back, they will pay...oh yes, they will pay.

In two days I will be off to Tucson and the ABA Convention. I'm so excited to see friends from around the country who I otherwise don't get to see and one of the bird store employees will have a booth featuring some of his artwork. I'm still trying to negotiate with Non Birding Bill to let me take his Power Book with me so I can do some blog updating while there. How cool would it be to give up to the minute gossip where many of the big wigs of birding will be? Of course, I doubt that we would see anything like Kenn Kaufman pantsing David Sibley (although I would pay good money to see something like that) but you never know what might be seen or heard.