My last post of 2006

Well, 2006 is almost over. Hope everyone had a good year. We have a family Christmas-ish gathering this afternoon and a couple gigs this weekend. Then Sarah and I are going birding for a day! Speaking of birds... I found this amazing website on birding in Peru. Check it out here and click on the "Pics & Files" link. Anyway, I need to get going. Happy New Year everyone!

Birds: Totals

Hello all! Thanks for all the congratulations. I wanted to get in one last bird post before the end of the year. I really missed out on the bulk of fall migration this year. November was so busy with the rehearsals and recording dates, I wasn't able to get out at all. That had me kind of bummed because I did so well last spring. But on December 2nd I finally did get up to Derby to try and salvage my list. Fortunately I had really good luck with strong west winds bringing in our first major cold front of the season. Highlights were two POMERINE JAEGERS, seven BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES, four PURPLE SANDPIPERS, and my long-awaited life SURF SCOTER! These and a handful of others brought my 2006 Region 5 Year List total up to: 230! I'm not very likely to add any new birds at this point but I reached my goal so I feel pretty good about it. My worst misses were Brant, Peregrine Falcon, Dunlin, Common Nighthawk and Northern Parula. There's also a handful of nemesis birds out there (you know who you are) that are going to be targets in 2007. I saw 59 life birds this year (most of them in Texas), bringing my North American Life List up to: 340. With the amount of traveling I'll be doing in the next few months, it's entirely possible I'll break 400 next year. I had four new birds for my New York State List, bringing me up to 277; eight new birds for my Region 5 List, bringing me up to 263. That's all for now. I'll try to get at least one more post in before the end of the year.

BIG NEWS!!!

Last Saturday Sarah and I took a day trip to New York City. It was amazing. We had a great time and, for those of you who don't already know, we came back officially engaged! Here are some of our photos from the trip.

That's a tiny little Statue of Liberty in the background.

Walking around lower Manhattan. People look so tiny.

Now that's a monument.

The 'castle' in Central Park.

Isn't she beautiful? I am one seriously lucky guy.

It was pretty cold all day. This was in Central Park again.

And this is Times Square.

The Empire State Building I think.

Check this out...

This is where I finally managed to propose: Rockefeller Center, in front of the big beautiful Christmas Tree, twenty minutes before our train left from Grand Central. And she said yes! It was wonderful. We were a little tired on the way home...
The ring is actually Sarah's grandmother's. I think we might take it in and get some work done on it this weekend; the jewler said it was too fragile for her to wear at the moment. But that doesn't mean she can't try it on a bit :-)So that's all I have time for right now. I've got more photos to post but I'll have to do that later. We're thinking spring of 2008 for the wedding, maybe Memorial Day. You have to admit... this was a pretty exciting Post #50. Take care everyone and Merry Chirstmas!