Subject: Fees & Blinds
Date: Dec 26 09:52:47 2003
From: Carol Riddell - cariddell at mac.com


Good morning Tweets,

I have synchronized my iMac date and time function with the Great Apple in
the Sky so I have fast-forwarded from 1904 and fast-backwarded from 2040 to
the remains of 2003. Thanks to the observant Tweeters who responded to my
message of yesterday to let me know my computer was throwing odd dates that
could have caused my problem with trying to order an annual pass from the
State Parks web site. After resynchronization, the order ran smoothly this
a.m.

Gary's comment about the blinds in France struck a chord. For a few years I
was visiting friends in Barcelona with some degree of frequency. I was very
impressed with the Spanish hides (as the Brits call them and as the word has
been incorporated into Spanish, much to the chagrin of my purist Spanish
friends who insist that "observatorio de aves" works just fine). The blinds
are solidly built, are wheelchair accessible, and have wooden shutters on
the openings so that hornets and birds remain on the outside after you are
through using the blind. They have shelves for placement of your field
guide and notebook. The shuttered openings are placed low for those who
sit and use binocs and high for those with spotting scopes. They are
located along ponds in wetland areas. Some ponds will have several blinds
so that you can get different viewing angles. I kept wondering why on earth
we don't have them here. In Spain they spend good money on building and
maintaining the blinds but not a peseta on outhouses. In contrast for
example, we have the pathetic, filthy, tumbledown, poorly-placed blind on
the River S Unit at Ridgefield with a fancy new outhouse that is clean and
wheelchair accessible. I got a kick out of sending those study-in-contrast
photos to the Spanish friends.

A lot of birding in this big country of ours does not lend itself to blinds,
but there are plenty of areas on NWRs and WMAs where we would benefit from
blinds, particularly for our winter birding in rainy climates. If I could
pay a user fee that would install a few European-quality blinds at the River
S Unit of Ridgefield, for example, that would give us more access during the
winter when we otherwise can't get out of the car due to Refuge
restrictions, it would be worth it to me. I'm sure each of us can think of
a favorite haunt at which a decent blind would be very helpful and would
keep us a little more cozy during the wet, cold months. What would it take
to move us in that direction? Personally, I would take a good blind any day
over an Audubon Center.

Carol Riddell
Edmonds