Ciblek Mania

In the spring of 2008 when I walked into Salem-Liberty Elementary School, and into daughter Phoebe's 6th grade classroom, it was the highlight of my professional career. That was the day that I handed all the 6th graders their own copies of The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America—a book they'd helped me create over the previous two years.

I felt such pride because the book had been a true collaboration. The kids really helped me to get the content, design, and format just right. I was also proud because I knew the book would help aspiring young birders to enjoy bird watching—to connect with the feathered part of the natural world in a meaningful way. It's the book I wish I'd had when I first noticed birds in 1968. And my hopes for the book were realized. Since it came out in early 2008, many thousands of copies have made their way into the hands of young birders (and into the hands of new birders of all ages, too). I've given talks to and led walks for young bird watchers all over the eastern half of North America.

Yesterday I got to repeat this very special event when I took son Liam's classmates their copies of the The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America, which they helped me create. The new book, which I've blogged about before, was created by expanding the eastern guide, and adding 100+ western species, to cover all of North America. Now young birders in the West have a book to get them started birding.

Yesterday afternoon, just as the school day was winding down, I gave the Salem-Liberty 6th graders their books, signed most of them, then we went out in front of the tiny rural school and snapped a photo for posterity (above). All of these kids are in their last days at Salem-Liberty. Next year they will all attend Fort Frye High School on the other side of the county. I thought back on the many dozens of birding walks we'd taken around the school grounds since 2006. I feel so lucky to have been a part of these book projects with these young folks. We've always had fun.

I believe that birds are the easiest way to connect young people to nature and that's been my mission with these two books. It will continue to be my mission for the rest of my life. But there's no way I could have done it without the great minds and enthusiastic helpers at Salem-Liberty Elementary School.

I'll be forever grateful to those amazing Salem-Liberty kids and their dedicated teachers.

My best pal in the whole wide world is William Henry Thompson IV and today he turns 12. I've known him his whole life, and he's known me, his dad, his whole life. We even formed a two-guy club called The Hotdog Brothers.

We do manly things like cook over campfires, and play pool, and throw the football, and spit, and pee outside. We are The Hotdog Brothers, YES WE ARE!

Nobody can do goofier or funnier things than Liam—like making cow's udders on your shadow on a winter's afternoon.

Liam, as he's known to most, has lots of other names, too: Popo, Shoomie, Brostie, Jonesie Boy, Stupendous Man, and many others. He is an artist and has an artist's heart and sensitivity.



Liam's best friend in the world is his big sister Phoebe. He's never know a world without Phoebe, which is lucky for him.He really adores Phoebe, and she him. She's taught him about the world, helped him with his homework, encouraged him to do new things, and even defended him at times from being picked on.

In return, Liam makes Phoebe laugh—a lot! Sometimes he acts like Uncle Feely, which can be annoying. But Phoebe puts up with it because she knows Liam loves her, and she can use this to get him to do things for her.

Any camera lying around in our house eventually gets filled with monkey-cam photos like this.


Liam is also an animal lover. Chet Baker, Boston Terrier, is like the brother that Liam never had. They play like siblings, with Chet play growling and Liam squealing out giggles of pure joy at the things Baker does.
Liam is the main fan in our house of our pair of Chinese dwarf hamsters. They like to sleep in Liam's hand while he reads or watches TV.

Liam cuts his own swath through the world of fashion and style. And because he's so sweet, he gets away with ensembles that a lesser being might not. For example: giant foam finger, fedora, camo shorts, green Crocks with white socks. Perfectly Liam!


Chicks dig Liam—especially older chicks, like Phoebe's high school friends, who loved having Liam along as part of Phoebe's 15th birthday last summer.

Even though he sometimes trudges to the school bus, Liam likes school. And school likes him, too.

For Halloween this year, Liam and Phoebe were pumpkinheaded monsters. Their costumes were amazing. It was Liam's concept made into real costumes by his mom, Julie.

There was quite a haul of candy. Above, Liam and his cousins Gus and Jake do a bit of candy trading after trick-or-treating.

Ahhh Liam! That's my boy! He's a dreamer, yes, but I'm so proud to be his daddy. And I'm so thankful that my own dad, William H. Thompson Jr, got to know my son, his namesake.


Happy birthday, sweet boy! I hope you someday get to feel how wonderful it is to have a child and to celebrate their birthday in a special way. Every year with you, Liam, is sweeter than the last.

In January 2010 I took daughter Phoebe to Florida for The Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival. We did a number of speaking gigs at the festival and at local schools. It was really cool to see Phoebe interacting with kids her age from the Florida schools, showing them, without a doubt, that birding is not just for nerds.

It was a highlight of my years as a Dad to be able to show Phoebe her life alligator, armadillo, manatee, bobcat, and a score of birds, including the endangered Florida scrub-jay. But there was one Florida lifer that eluded us: the giant roadside attraction.

On Sunday, when the festival was over, we headed for the Orlando airport by a roundabout way. A giant alligator at a roadside attraction provided a perfect memento for Phoebe. We stopped, she got out, and we took a few photos with this big-as-a-tractor-trailer gator.

I love this image because it shows my little girl, who is no longer a little girl, in full "hurry up and take the photo, Daddy!" posture. What a gator! What a trip! And what a girl! We really need to do another daddy-daughter trip before fledges into the wide world on her own two wings.

I'm taking a bit of artistic license here in using the above image of an alligator to represent my daughter Phoebe's first encounter with one of these large aquatic, carnivorous reptiles. The actual photo of her life 'gator is the one below, which Ms. Phoebe digiscoped herself. [Special thanks to the eagle-eyed Lisa White, a native Florida cracker, who spotted this gator for us in a canal at Merritt Island NWR.]


It was not a very satisfying look at the first gator. It only had its head above water. After about three minutes, it removed even that small bit of itself, slowing sinking into the murky water. The three of us spent the rest of the morning driving around, certain we'd see another gator—perhaps one out on a bank soaking in the sun on this very cool Florida morning. But we were denied.

So we went to the beach.


Two days later Phoebe and I were headed back to the beach when we saw a turn off for Eco Pond Road. I'd remembered seeing and photographing a massive alligator on that road two years before, so we turned off for a side gator hunt. Just two miles later, I spotted our gator, lounging in the back of a lagoon, covered in duckweed. I told Phoebe to get out and stand on the bank in front of the gator (which was at least 60 feet away) so I could take her photo with her first look at a complete American alligator.
She agreed to pose for the photo, but could not help cringing when I raised the camera to my eye and said "Awesome! He's coming closer!"


After manatees, seeing an alligator was next on Phoebe's most-wanted list. The fact that we also added bobcat and armadillo was icing on the already rich and delicious cake.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my good friends at The Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival for inviting Phoebe and me down to Titusville, and for making us feel so welcome. It was an unforgettable experience for us and it reminded me how completely lucky I am to be a Dad.

As soon as we got off the plane at the Orlando airport and secured our rental car, Phoebe and I took off after her most-wanted Florida experience: seeing a manatee. I knew from previous experience that Blue Springs State Park was one of the best places to find these gentle aquatic mammals, so that's where we headed (after a quick nosh at Steak & Shake!).

Sure enough, as soon as we parked the car and walked down to the edge of spring-fed Blue Springs Run where it meets the St. John's River, Phoebe added West Indian manatee to her mammal life list.

The park is a designated manatee refuge and the park's name (Blue Springs) is the reason the manatees are here in the winter. Warm water from the springs heats the river and manatees need warm water to survive. The very cold weather of early January had been hard on the manatees in this part of Florida.

We walked the boardwalk for the next two hours, looking at manatees, spotting birds, marveling at live oaks draped in Spanish moss, and drinking in the warm Florida sunshine.

That morning when we left Ohio, it was snowing hard with three inches of snow on the ground, temperatures dropping. So, though Floridians on the boardwalk were bundled up and decrying the cold snap, 68ºF felt like beach weather to us.


Me: "We're not in Ohio anymore, Phoebster!"
Phoebe: "Yeah and if we were, I'd be in algebra class right now!"

Later this month I will be getting onto an airplane with my red-headed daughter Phoebe Linnea to go to Florida for a bit. We'll be participating in the Space Coast Birding Festival in Titusville, FL as speakers/trip leaders. Yes, that's right, Phoebe is launching her career as a birding festival performer and, knowing her as I do, I feel certain that she will surpass me (and perhaps her mom, eventually) within a a short while.


Getting to split from the frozen wonderland of southeastern Ohio for the less-frozen sand-and-seascape of Florida's east coast has made Phoebe a much happier youngster during our recent string of snow days.



Phoebe and I will be giving presentations at three different schools in the Titusville area, plus at the Space Coast Birding Festival itself. After each talk, we'll go outside for a bit of birding. The topic for our talks is kids and bird watching salted with some stories from our work on The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America.

Phoebe's class at Salem Liberty Elementary School spent half of fourth grade, all of fifth grade, and part of sixth grade helping me to create the Young Birder's Guide. We'll talk about how the book was created, how the kids liked it, and about some of the other cool things we discovered along the way.

One of our early appointments during the trip is in Celebration, Florida, where we'll do an interview at Radio Disney on a show hosted by two young gals who are about Phoebe's age. It will be neat to see what Phoebe thinks of this crossroads of pop culture, teen sensation, and mass media.
When I asked Phoebe last summer if she wanted to go to the festival with me in January, she immediately said "Yes!" Followed by "Wait! Will it be warm there?" When I confirmed that it was likely to be warmer there than in Ohio, she was all in.

Then I asked the inevitable question, since we'd be flying into Orlando:
"Phoebs, do you want to go to Disney World since we'll be right there?"

And she said immediately:
"NO! I want to see manatees!"

This ranks among my proudest moments as a parent.
Of course I also hope to show Phoebe some of Florida's sweet birds, like wood stork, roseate spoonbills, and egrets at Merritt Island, and the limpkins, anhingas, and rafts of ducks at Viera Wetlands. I expect she'll dig these feathered wonders even if it's not sunny and 75ºF the entire week.


I'm also looking forward to introducing my daughter to some of my friends from the birding festival circuit. She's already met many of them, but being the proud papa, I can't resist showing her off just a bit.

If you're planning to attend the Space Coast Birding Festival, please come to one of our public talks and walks on Saturday, January 30.