Wintry trek

Birding with a 10-month-old strapped to your chest is a little different than birding without a 10-month-old strapped to your chest. For one, you can't really hold your binoculars the same way and you definitely have to forego a strap. Also, there isn't as much patience for stopping and studying every last primary on a two-year gull. In fact, when we did stop walking on Sunday, the little one looked up at me to suggest that I should keep on walking. Now, it was about 27 degrees and windy at the time, yet that didn't seem to be a problem--tough fledgling we have.

While on Montrose Point, a passerby asked if we'd seen the coyotes. We hadn't, in fact I've only seen fox at Montrose, never a coyote. I asked if he could show us to the coyotes, probably a dubious parenting decision to say the least with wild carnivores around. Yet we walked over to a thicket to get a good look at the big canines. About 50 feet away, there was a coyote looking back at us through the woods. It was impressive--more wolf-like than I imagined--but we soon made our way back to the car, satisfied with our wintry trek.