Tweeters,

Since there was another call for stories I will put one out there...

I grew up in eastern Prince William Sound, Alaska. In the small fishing village of Cordova. In May of each year we have a shorebird festival like so many places do (this year it starts tomorrow, the 7th). Due to this timing I had always been commercial fishing for herring in Bristol Bay and never able to attend. Well, several years ago I again missed the festival but was able to make it back to Cordova in the days immediately afterward with my 7 y/o daughter Maeva in tow. We were merrily strolling across the mudflats in the spring sunshine as the steam from the warming mud created a surreal vista as flocks of dunlin, least and western sandpipers wheeled and banked disapearing then reappearing through the steam-banks. At one point Maeva and I were about 15 feet apart when we were overtaken by several thousand birds, hundreds of them flying between us! The look on my daughters face was one of ecstatic delight! She had her hands covering her ears, a mile
wide grin and she was squealing with joy! I will never forget it.

Now she is 15 and last week I couldn't drag her to Monroe to see the Vaux's swifts at sunset! What happened?

Quinn Selitsch
captquinn at yahoo.com
Seattle-Cordova-Dillingham-Prudhoe Bay