Hello from a very inexperienced birder who asked you in Dec

about trees that might attract birds. I greatly

appreciated all the responses, especially so many specifics

and suggestions given by Dennis Paulson and the advice on

hawthorns and fruit trees from several. It made me

realize how limited thinking can be self defeating. We

wanted pest free plants and we wanted birds. The

inconsistency should have been obvious. We found 7

hawthorns on the site and were able to save them from the

construction crews! Port Townsend requires us to seed

our swales with annual rye grass, and grasses growing

before the construction assault are beginning to appear,

so hopefully there will soon be seeds. Our group listened

to a permaculture presentation. We planted a few trees

but will defer others till we dig our well and identify

group goals for landscaping.



I'm going to spend a week in the Tuscon area the last 2

weeks in March, camp at the Nature Conservancy's Muleshoe

Preserve and visit the Ramsey Preserve and Saguaro also.

Anyone familiar with this area and its birding/hiking

possibilities? Any suggestions welcome.



I've really enjoyed reading tweeters messages. Altho I

skip much of the specialized stuff I find at least one

topic in each digest that interets me. It's like taking

a birding course at my leisure and eliminating the

formality associated with so much course work, and finding

the people as interesting as the subjects. By the way I

think you might appreciate a quote from a review of Edward

O Wilson's autobiography, (by Jared Diamond). " Wilson's

fishing accident, loss of hearing and acute near vision in

the left eye suited him to studying ants and barred him

from his earlier interests in butterflies and frogs.

Conversely, most ornithologists I know, including myself,

share an acute far-distance vision and memory for sounds,

and also tend to be quick-moving people with the high

metabolic rates characteristic of birds. Zoologists

specializing in lizards and snakes are notorious for being

rather slow-moving, fond of the hot sun and rising late,

like the reptiles they study. This all may sound naive

and silly - until we reflect on the mysterious moments of

insight and decision which so many of us experience as

children or young adults and which set our direction in

life. Such an 'epiphany' is merely the final stimulus

falling on an already prepared mind." I really like

that and many tweeters messages suggest that it fits.

However it leaves me in the dust with a moribund image

because fossils were my first love. As a child I hated

fresh seafood but loved chewing Devonian shale fragments

(with their brachiopods) lying around my yard. Thats OK

but what does that say about my temperment and

metabolism - fossils don't move much and will wait forever,

little altered, for my brain to awake and my body to get

moving. My new enthusiasm for plants and birds is a bit

more hopeful.

/