Hi everyone,



Well, me and my wife is on the east coast for a vacation, and we was happy to do some birding Sunday.? We found us a cool cite with tons of birds that?are within site of the Philadelphia International Airport, of all places (the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge).? I seen myself three new lifers - the best being a YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER.? Then there were the LAUGHING GULL, Philly's equivalent of Seattle "Ivar's Gull" (you know, that species what likes french fries better than almost anything else).? And then the immature RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, soaring cooperatively overhead (how can I look for the Red-shouldered Hawk at the Kent Ponds half a dozen times, never see it and then travel cross-country and there's a great look?)? And the best part is, we have even more sights to visit while myself is in this part of the country.



This is a forum to exchange birding information.? I used to be a spelling freak, and still pride myself in (usually) doing a much better job than any spell-checker does.? However, the founder of one of the startup companies I worked for demonstrated to me that utter genius and the ability to string letters together to perfection sometimes do not correlate at all.? And yes, my age and educational background still cause me to wince at poor grammar.? But then I realized that we don't even have a consensus in this country that there should be such a thing as an official national language which all citizens have a responsibility to learn to a workable level.? Perhaps we ought to have an agreement on that before we start fostering an elitist attitude that does nothing but discourage some people from contributing useful information to this forum.?



I personally hope everyone continues to contribute birding information to this forum, regardless of their proficiency in the English language.? Those who are bothered by grammatically incorrect postings that still serve perfectly well to communicate the intended information can go form a 'King's English' forum that takes delight in being critical of others' literary failings and spend their time patting each other on the back for being so much more 'intelligent' than the average Joe or Jane.



John Tubbs

Snoqualmie, WA

johntubbs at comcast.net