first posting

Hi, my name is Chris and this is my first posting for what I anticipate will be a year long blog about my upcoming travel adventure. This blog is titled "Slow Birding: the big year meets the big night" because it seeks to encapsulate several elements of my travels in 2010, in particular birdwatching and eating.

Slow birding is a take off of slow food--the anti fast food/quality food movement that began in Italy and has spread around the world. The big year references when a birder seeks to see as many different bird species in a given geographic area in a calendar year. The most common geographic areas chosen by American birders are a county, a state or all of North America above the Mexican border. In my case I am only birding the lower 48 states in 2010 as part of my goal to thoroughly enjoy my birding time; to maintain some level of sanity around the goal of seeing as many different species as possible in a calendar year; and to make it easier for friends and family to join me in my adventure.

The big night references the food movie of the same name, and underscores another one of my main reasons for embarking on this travel adventure--eating and sharing with friends and family some really great food. I will be revisiting some of my favorite restaurants, and trying a few new ones. I will be seeking out authentic, local pizza places. I plan to visit several of the hamburger joints that George Motz wrote about in his book Hamburger America. I also will be searching for local/regional foods wherever possible.

When the birding slows down a bit in the latter part of the year, I will be doing some hiking and backpacking as well. I plan to visit some of my favorite places to hike, particularly out in the western part of our beautiful country, which is where I began birdwatching in my early 20's as part of being a hiker and backpacker. I did both pretty often during my 20's and early 30's, but then work and family began to capture most of my time, so the birding and hiking pretty much faded away for several years. In the past decade I have been able to return to both after I retired. And now in my 60th year I will begin my Slow Birding adventure on January 1. Stay tuned!