Birding with Kenn and Kimberly

Katie Chang, Alex Wolff, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Michael Chen starring as young birders on a quest in the new Rob Meyer film, "A Birder's Guide to Everything." From out on the road, Kenn writes:  It's official!  The next birding movie will have its world premiere next month in New York City! You may recall that I've previously written about A Birder's Guide to Everything, the feature-length film-in-the-making by Rob Meyer.  Last July I introduced the film in this blog post .  Later I visited the set while the film was being shot on location north of New York, and I wrote about the experience (and about the amazing amount of hard work involved in movie-making) in this post .   Since that time I've been following the progress of the post-production work, as Rob Meyer and his team have worked through massive job of editing, mixing, and turning all the raw footage into a finished film.  Of course, I still haven't seen the finished product, but I...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: I don't like to brag, but one thing I can say for Kimberly and me -- we have some really awesome friends and neighbors. For example, in our neighborhood there's a young lady named Delaney, an elementary school student with a sharp mind and a lot of artistic talent. Recently she has developed a strong interest in birds and other nature subjects, and she has been studying them and learning fast. As evidence of her powers of observation, a single Pine Siskin showed up in the neighborhood last month, and Delaney spotted it before Kim or I did. And her enthusiasm must be contagious, because her parents, John and Tiffanie, are now paying more attention to birds also. We had had a number of conversations about birds with their family, and we had given them a couple of copies of our field guides, but we were stunned and thrilled recently when they knocked at the door and presented us with a beautiful, hand-made, personalized bird feeder that they h...

From the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, Kim writes: Today felt like old times. When the Ohio Young Birders Club was younger itself I spent A LOT of time on the phone with parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and neighbors -- trying to arrange transportation for students still too young to drive. Last January, I took the position as the executive director of the Observatory that founded the club, and since then I've had to dish many of those responsibilities off to the OYBC coordinators, John Sawvel and Delores Cole. John and Delores are great, and it's very rewarding to see the club continue to grow and reach more and more young people while I'm doing other BSBO business. B ut, I have to admit that sometimes it's hard to accept that the club is not "my baby" anymore. Well, for a few hours today, I got my baby back! I just happened to be the one available to deal with this, and it felt so good to be back in the business of making great experiences happ...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn and Kim write: This past weekend, the Ohio Young Birders Club -- a group that has been very important to us since its inception -- had a fine field trip, seeing a wide variety of early spring migrants with the bonus of some rare Smith’s Longspurs. The bad news was that both of us were swamped with work (preparing for the month of May, which we call May-hem around here) so that we personally couldn’t go on the trip. The good news was that the field trip went fine without us, since the Club has a lot of adult support now, and a lot of keen young members. At the end of the weekend, we had another piece of most excellent news from another state: our friend Kevin Loughlin wrote to tell us about the successful second meeting of the new Pennsylvania Young Birders Club. Kevin, who runs Wildside Nature Tours, is a world traveler, professional photographer, and accomplished birder and naturalist. It’s inspiring to see that someone of his stature is taking the time an...

American Oystercatchers on the beach at Jekyll Island, Georgia From Jekyll Island, Georgia, Kenn and Kim write: Okay, we admit, we stole that title from an old Calvin and Hobbes collection. But it totally applies to our current situation. Ever since we arrived at the Bird Education Network conference on Sunday -- or, actually, ever since we left home to go judge the Ohio Wetlands Conservation Stamp contest early Saturday morning -- we’ve hardly had time to blink, let alone attend to luxuries like blogging or sleeping. By a most amazing coincidence, on our early morning flight out of Columbus on Sunday, we wound up sitting right next to our dear friend (and wonderful artist / author / blogger) Julie Zickefoose. She was headed to Honduras, we to Georgia, and fortunate fate put us not only on the same flight but even in the same seat row. We talked about birds and families and writing and music, and never has a three-hour plane flight passed so quickly. Here at the conference we manag...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kim writes: Just when you thought baby penguin pictures were imminent, I take us off topic to share some really uplifting, inspiring, and hope-inducing news for anyone who cares about the future of birds and birding. While we haven't talked much about it on the blog (not yet!), Kenn and I devote a large portion of our time to a program called the Ohio Young Birders Club (OYBC). I won't give all the club's nitty gritty here. Just check out the website that's chock-full of information. Ohio Young Birders Club The club is something that Kenn and I helped form about 2 1/2 years ago, with the hope that we could build a community of young birders, and offer them the opportunities and experiences that would foster their interest in birds and nature. The ultimate goal being that some of the students would someday pursue careers in bird and conservation related fields. Here are a few of my favorite field trip pictures. Studying Virginia Rails & Sor...