Yes, Joni is an amazing woman. The High School on Caye Caulker is her legacy to the world.

That is beyond cool! Good for her!

At least they are very visible…

Our daughter went to Caye Caulker (south of Ambergris) as a tourist and fell in love with the place. She also found a goal to pursue there, since the island had no high school. She founded one, which has persisted and become successful. Without it, kids would have to take the water taxi to drug ridden Belize City, or to San Pedro, on Ambergris.

My mother was a big scuba diver. They bought a house in Ambegris Caye back when it was a two day trip to get there, because of the infrequent flights. Now the area has been discovered. What brought your daughter to live in Belize?

Jacinto would love to tour in Mexico, I am not too sure. We have heard too many horror stories. A few good ones, like yours. But too many bad ones for me to be comfortable. Being kidnapped, as a white person, is my major concern. Sorry, that sounded like a downer. But, fact.

Caw, caw!

You should try ablation surgery. Its wonderful to feel like a young man of 75 again!

Increasingly we find ourselves moving into the old, grumpy, intransigent camp. How mortifying to realize that if you are as old as you feel, we are positively ancient.

Yup. The AOU has decided that all of the American birds named after a person will need renaming, sometime this year: Anna’s hummingbird, Lewis’s woodpecker, Audubon’s warbler, Bewick’s wren, Gambel’s quail, Harris’s hawk, and on and on and on.

Don’t get me started on my thoughts on this - I’m just the messenger.

Wait, whoa, what? New name for Anna's Hummingbird?

I’ll have to remember this, and mentally put an asterisk after your bird count for the year. And you probably know btw that we’ll have to learn the new name for Anna’s hummingbird, among others?

Dodie actually saw this demotion from Northwestern to American also, but we like the Northwestern designation better so........ Yeah, we will be well down the coast of Spain by the time you arrive in Valencia. And Steve says he intends to vacuum up every bird he can find! Haha.

This is so yesterday’s news. The American Ornithological Society decided these were actually just American Crows after all, back in 2020.

Sounds like we’re going to just miss each other in Spain once again! We don’t leave for four weeks yet. Don’t use up all the birds before we get there, por favor.

Ubiquitous.

Priceless!