The evening of January 28, 2016, ABC held its annual self-congratulatory party with Big Year reports, member photos, and refreshments (Thanks to Vera, Faye, & Kay).

After announcements of coming TAS and ABC events, Big Year reports started with Brian Pendleton, who didn’t start out to do a Big Year, but ended up with the 2nd biggest list for the entire state and #34 in the U.S!  Then Bruce LaBar was up as #1 in Pierce County and #10 in WA.  Ed (#2 in Pierce, 7th in Kitsap) and Kay Pullen talked about their Big Years and the exodus of local birders to Texas in November for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.  Marcus Roening as #3 in the county gave his report next, as well as a report on his July trip to Alaska.  Ken Brown then talked about his Kitsap and state Big Year (#2 in Kitsap) and how eBird has made this kind of birding possible.  Cara Borre’s video account of her Mason County (#1) Big Year was then shown to the audience’s delight.

We had a short break for goodies, at which time those who wore Malheur shirts/caps to celebrate the NWR’s liberation got together:

ABCers support Malheur NWR

We had lots of fun looking at everyone’s 5 best photos from the past year!  Participation was high, and we barely got through before we were thrown out!  Thanks, all!

On January 23, 2016, Dave Grenier led ABCers and other birders around Capitol Lake on a dark and stormy morning!  The weather report was wrong, and in the wrong direction!  It never stopped, but we took on the roles of storm watchers as we experienced the glory and the wetness of the Deschutes River in full roil!

At Tumwater Falls

From Tumwater Falls to the state capitol, we stopped at every stop and saw every bird that was crazy enough to be out!  However, that netted us HUGE numbers of Canvasbacks, not to mention an argument among some of us about whether a particular goose was a Lesser Canada or a Cackler.

A truly memorable morning testing our rain gear and experiencing scenes of watery madness we may never see again.  Thanks, Dave!

The quiet end of Capitol Lake on Jan 23, 2016.

Interest has been keen for the repositioning cruise and we have 12 persons who have expressed interest on this first day. As of now there are 12 persons who have sent their names to the agent, but we have one woman and one man without same-gender berth-mates. If one more male and one more female contact me I’ll see if I can get a seventh berth reserved and we can make it a 14 person trip. Please contact me if you are interested in filling up the last two beds.

Current list of interested persons

Ed Pullen
Ken Brown
Art Wang
Bruce Labar
Donna LaCasse
Kay Schimke
Vera Cragin
Kathy (Vera Cragin’s daughter)
Joe Tieger
Margaret Tieger
Jody Hess
Brian Patterson

Thanks, Ed