Bird biking

Our friend Dave Fallow expertly guides people to see birds in Madison. Due to concerns about climate change, he now only guides people that show up by bus or bicycle. It's a valid point: if one loves nature, it's a little strange to use a lot of fossil fuels to go appreciate it. He's not alone in this idea. I found an interesting site about it here. Many bird watchers are avid list makers and so that site's idea is to only count the birds spotted while self propelled.
   The other day we struggled out of bed at what is our idea of early and biked across town to meet Dave at 9 am. It was a glorious day and we saw lots of birds that were migrating south, mostly beautiful small warblers. We also saw what looked like an offering to the wood spirits.

 Enormous prairie flowers towered over us.

 There were beautiful reflections in a marshy area.

  We're not serious about making lists and have no idea how many species of birds we've seen. A lot of cool ones. In the interests of full disclosure: we do carefully keep lists of what we have seen in the vicinity of our house in Wisconsin, in our yard in Costa Rica and in Costa Rica as a whole.  Somewhere we have lists of other trips that we've never bothered to combine into what is called a Life List. 
   It's very good to know there are so many interesting things to see close to home. Thanks Dave, for again showing us the wonders of Picnic Point.