On 17 October I hosted Ron and Jane Miller from Milwaukee, WI for four hours of birding. We spent the whole morning at the Arcata Marsh as Ron had wanted to try and get looks at Virginia Rail and Sora, which he had never seen along with some easy to find species like White-tailed Kite. There were also possibilities of seeing some recently found rarities like Painted Bunting and Brewer's Sparrow in the area. The weather was perfect with clear skies, cool temps in the morning, becoming warmer by the end of the morning and little wind the whole time, making for a very pleasant and productive morning of birding. With a leisurely and relaxed pace we ended up tallying 76 species!

Last Friday I was hired by Florida birder, John Erickson, for some "Power Birding" (John's words). He first contacted me by finding my name on the Redwood Region Audubon website (www.RRAS.org) since I am the field trip coordinator for that organization. John first asked if I knew of anybody that might be willing to bird with him while he was in Humboldt County for a couple of days and I said I did know of some local birders that might be available, and also mentioned that I was a guide. Long-story-short, he hired me for a half day of birding, hoping to see as many lifers possible in five hours. Since John had never been birding on the West Coast he had a lenghty list of potential lifer western birds. The night before I made a list of the his potential lifers we could see along the coastal slope around the north Humboldt Bay region and came up with a list of 45 species! It's always SOOOO fun to be able to potentially help a birder get so many lifers that has never visited the West Coast before.