I can't really say I have a benchmark bird. My mom
was a birder for most of my childhood, and both of
my parents were very into nature, so it just
seemed natural that whenever you went on a trip or
a walk, you brought along binoculars and field guides. From
the time I was ten we took trips across country, and
well, didn't everyone pull off the highway by a pond
in South Dakota and look at the waterfowl?

Though when I think back - when I was in elementary
school or so it was butterflies that really had my
attention (you could catch them, afterall). For a large
portion of my teenage years I focused a little more on
mammals - rebelling you know (my mom would have the bird
book, I the mammal book). But we loved it all, whatever class
or kingdom - it was nature.

However, watching my roof-nesting gulls over the past couple
of years has awakened my interest a bit deeper. I'd never
been interested in doing the level of research that I've
started since I watched these gulls - now I'm trying to
dig up PhD thesis in the library. So you can say that the
plain old ordinary Glaucous-Winged gull is a bit of a
benchmark bird for me - for ornithology as opposed to birding.

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John Chapman ====================================================
Seattle, Washington =============================================
ragweed at igc.org =================================================