The ABC club met at its new venue on April 26, 2012, at the University Place Library. Looks like a winner!

First Ryan Weiss gave a short trip report on the overnight sage grouse trip to Leahy Junction, SWaterville Plateau, and points between earlier this month. An incredibly satisfying trip for both the grouse and many other birds including an early Ferruginous. Plus it was an intro to our upcoming MAY ABC meeting on May 24 when Ryan will tell us some of the interesting stuff he’s learned about Sage Grouse while doing research to lead this trip and the one two years ago to the Yakima Training Range. So mark the date!

Then Carole Breedlove, “Queenfisher,” regaled us with tales about her recent trip to Madagascar and her continuing search for all the Kingfishers of Planet Earth. After thanking Wayne Jackson, who was present, for getting her into birding not that long ago, she told the tale of one crazy woman who has used Kingfishers as her excuse to visit all the continents and many remote islands in her search, managing to ring up almost 5000 world birds in the process and plodding on, no matter the nasty climate, nasty bugs (and some cute ones), and even illness, and she’s far from done.