Well, Michelle, you certainly did create an interesting thread.

As many of you may know I occasionally post 'Birding at Track Speed' articles on
birds that I see while I am riding around on freight trains for Canadian Pacific
Railway. It was one of these birds that actually got me into birding as a hobby.
One April, as we were traveling through the eastern part of the Fraser Valley, I
saw what appeared to be 4 sub adult Bald Eagles riding a thermal. There was only
one problem, I had been passing the winter Convocation of Bald Eagles at Harrison
Bay enough times to know that these birds should have been dispersed by that
time. In other words one might see one sub adult or possibly a pair of adults but
four sub adults at once?

This got me to thinking about what else they might be so when I got home I
dragged out an old (but unthumbed) copy of Peterson's - A FIELD GUIDE TO WESTERN
BIRDS. This had been given to me as a gift when I was a kid. After much puzzled
perusal I decided that these four birds must have been Turkey Vultures. I didn't
even know, until then, that they existed in BC. It took another three months for
me to confirm that this was in fact what I had seen when I actually saw an adult
flying alongside the train and I could pick out all the field marks that make
this bird so easy to identify when you know what you are looking for. I have
since discovered that these birds have a late morning roost in the area and they
are there every year at the same time.

My Grandfather was a hunter and birder in Manitoba and my Dad, to a lesser
extent, kept track of the birds around him but it wasn't until I saw those four
birds that I got hooked and then found out that it was fun to try and identify as
many birds on the fly ,so to speak, as I could.

My life list is kinda stalled at around 380, at the moment, because I haven't
done any serious birding since I got my computer but I still manage to find the
odd lifer while I am birding at work and it is all the more challenging because I
don't carry binoculars with me.

I have also traveled throughout western Canada and the US to some of the best
Birding Hot Spots all because of Turkey Vultures.

Well, so much for my 'Benchmark Bird'. Thanks for posting the topic Michelle.

Roger Craik
Maple Ridge BC
Conductor - Canadian Pacific Railway.