[obol] A Good Day with My Son

[Forest Tomlinson]

Hello Birders, This afternoon my eight year-old son Torrey and I went  
to Jasper Park with hopes of getting two lifers for him. He is at 198  
on his life list and he is trying hard to get to 200. We have gone  
out several times looking for Hoodies, Trumpeter Swans, or something  
really interesting to have as a two-hundredth bird, but we have  
struck out. Not today though. We no sooner walked into the park when  
we spotted a female Hoodie in beautiful light swimming on a pond that  
looked like a stained glass window. What a beautiful bird! I told  
Torrey that there must be a male around and we should wait for him to  
come out of the cover. Pretty soon some folks came by with dogs and  
we decided to come back after a walk. So we left the pond with 199!

We walked the entire length of the grassy park without seeing another  
bird. As we entered the woods at the east end, I heard the high- 
pitched chips of Golden-crowned Kinglets. Of course they stuck pretty  
much to the treetops and this made it very difficult for Torrey, who  
is normally pretty good with bins, to get his 8 x 42’s on them. He  
just couldn’t get one in his glasses and the flock moved on. I asked  
him what he wanted to do and he said, without hesitation, “let’s  
follow them”. So we followed them into the woods. They moved from  
treetop to treetop and Torrey couldn’t get a good look at them. Along  
the way we found a Hermit Thrush, Fox Sparrow, Spotted Towhee, Brown  
Creeper, Song Sparrow, Bewick’s Wren, and Downey Woodpecker. But  
those are all birds already on his list, we kept moving with the  
kinglets. Finally one brave individual came down from the top of a  
tree and for a kinglet, was relatively motionless. Torrey got him in  
the bins and described him to a T. But alas, daddy forgot the book!

So we walked back to the car. Passing the pond with the Hoodie, we  
paused and Torrey spotted a male Wood Duck. I spotted the female  
Hoodie, and then as we stood there telling each other what we had  
found, a male Hooded Merganser popped up right in front of us in the  
middle of the pond. We both watched the male and female swim away and  
when they were out of sight we jump up and down with glee.

We drove home and Torrey got the National Geographic out. He looked  
through the book for several minutes before he finally said that he  
thought he knew what it was. I asked him if he was sure and he said  
that he was. I told him that if he gets it wrong, he’d have to go  
find them again. He said “Golden-crown Kinglets” and we hugged each  
other and slapped high fives.  We are having a “200th Bird-day Party”  
on Sunday, complete with a cake in the shape of bird and games like  
pin the beak on the bird and bird charades.

Good birding to you all,
Forest Tomlinson
Eugene
p.s. We have been looking pretty hard for Northern Shrikes for our  
Lane County Big Year. Anyone seen one in Lane County lately?