Off to Utah

I'm packing my bags for my trip out to Utah in the morning. Look forward to seeing old friends again--birds and humans. I'm leading two birding trips a day during the big Outdoor Retailers Expo, including one Saturday evening with Audubon president John Flicker. Then on Monday night at midnight I take a red-eye flight to JFK and a hopper up to Maine to spend the rest of the week at the Audubon chapter leadership camp at Hog Island. I won't get up there in time for another puffin cruise (darn it!), so it'll probably be mostly eiders and guillemots for me. And lobster dinner of course! After that comes the long drive back to Pennsylvania. Maybe some rarity I can chase will show up on the route. If not, I'll blitz back home to spend as much time as I can with my family before heading off to Belize and Guatemala for the rest of the month. I'll see a lot of birds this month, but not a whole lot in Pennsylvania. By the time I'm really back, school will have started up again and the summer will be over. Oh well, such is the life!