I had a conversation with my friend Hans about Adam Savage coming in town for W00tStock and if there would be any way to entice him to blow up a stump for us. Hans said, "You know, I bet that since he blows up stuff for work all the time it isn't fun for him any more." I disagreed and said, "That's like me saying that birding isn't fun any more. Some things you just love whether they are part of your job or not.

Non Birding Bill and I noticed that we both had four days in a row off over Easter and he insisted that I take a vacation--no blogging, no scheduling, no media, no nothing for four days. Although, since I enjoy birding as much as I do, it was hard to avoid that altogether--especially with spring raging early and hard in our neck of the woods.

Yesterday along I found this obliging fox sparrow, heard ruffed grouse strumming incessantly and strong, found flocks of phoebes and noticed all sorts of mating shenanigans with wintering birds.

This morning, I came back to work by escorting Stephanie Hemphill from MPR to the North Mississippi Regional Park heron rookery. The birds are still fairly easy to see and if the weather is good on Thursday, I'll probably roam out that way in a ranger capacity with my scope around 10 am (if anyone is playing hookie from work).

I have some fun duck photos coming, hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend.