Birding Cameron Parish and Wader Quest talk to the LOS.

We had been invited by the Louisiana Ornithological Society to give a talk at their spring meeting in Cameron. The talk was to take place in the evening, so having met most of the members attending the meeting on the previous evening we set off for a day birding with Joelle Finlay, her husband Ken Harris and Cyndi Sellers a reporter from the local newspaper.

(L to R) Ken, Joelle, Elis, Rick and Cyndi on the Cameron big day!

The focus of the day wasn't waders, the others had their own agenda, and that being to see as many species as possible in the day in Cameron Parish. It was great fun and in the end we notched up a respectable 116 species for the day, I even got a lifer in the form of Western Tanager, a lovely male.

Male Western Tanager

Wader wise we did OK, we had Grey Plover, Piping Plover, Semipalmated Plover, Wilson's Plover, Killdeer, American Avocet, Black-necked Stilt, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Eastern Willet, Western Willet, Marbled Godwit, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Dunlin, Semipalmated Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher. Not a bad haul for a non wader day!

Eastern Willet

The talk in the evening seemed to go down well with an appreciative audience and we received donations totalling U$152.00 (<£98.00>).

In full flow

The good folk of the LOS are a fantastic group of birders, their friendliness and interest in our project were heartwarming, you hear talk of 'southern hospitality', well we have now experienced it, what a great bunch of people!

The good folk of the LOS

We'd like to thank Judith O'Neale, Joelle, Ken and Cyndi for all their help in making the evening the success it was and a special vote of thanks to Joseph for his help in raising the donations on the night (blue shirt RHS picture) and also for steppingforward to act as slide changer when the technology let us down, (apologies again for getting your name wrong Julian, I mean Joseph!)