Hey! Check out this freaky lookin' bird hanging out in Texas right now. I think it's some kind of partial albino blackbird (my guess would be red-wing but the jury is still out).

I am back from Alabama. Above is the view of the meeting room I spent most of Thursday in. It was a good thing the mountain view was mostly fogged over and I wasn't too distracted by watching thermalizing raptors. Still quite pretty.

Wednesday night when I got stuck in Memphis, the airport gave all of us stranded passengers hotel vouchers and a dinner and breakfast voucher. The hotel had a special menu for us--apparently, we were "distressed passengers". We were given $15 for dinner which covered a beverage and appetizer. The cheapest actual dinner was $14.95 and most were $16.95. The breakfast voucher was the biggest joke. It was for $5 and the cheapest thing on the breakfast menu was the small pot of coffee for $4.95. Ah well, all part of the joys of travel.

I really do enjoy traveling for work. It's fun and if something is a little boring, you always know that tomorrow I could be in a different place doing something different. But really, when you're a "birding specialist" things rarely get boring.

While in Birmingham, we stopped at a Wild Bird Center. They have a very cute puppy who greets you when you arrive. Bart, who was my contact in Birmingham, outted me at the WBC as the birdchick and writer for Birding Business and the owner said, "Oh no! You do those secret shopper articles, you're gonna look at my store." Well, not now, since I'm outted. I don't do those articles too much anymore and if I did, this store would have passed with flying colors anyway.