Summertime... and the blogging ain't easy

Oh, my poor neglected blog, I am sorry for being so remiss in providing you with much of substance lately.

Every now and again, I go through periods where I feel like I am just posting a photo here and there, and not doing any writing. (Which some might argue isn't a bad thing - I'm not sure how much people enjoy my writing, but this is a blog after all and I feel like I should be.) In June I challenged myself to post at least one photo each day in order to make sure that I kept it active, as I felt that the blog was starting to become stale. It's easy to fall into patterns, and I could see that I was only posting once or twice a week and that was primarily for the memes that I participate in. Now that June is gone, and summer is in full swing, I need to really put a stronger effort into keeping the blog fresh and interesting. It's certainly not as easy for me as it might sound, but thankfully I have a few events that I look forward to blogging about. As you might have picked up on by now, I just got back from a week in Maine and I hope to start blogging about that tomorrow. (Working two jobs today and then back to first job early tomorrow, so it just won't happen today) I took lots of photos and have a couple of neat videos that I took also, and am looking forward to sharing them with you.

Then, this coming Saturday, I be joining Dawn, Luke, and several others for the next outing of Birders who Blog, Tweet, and Chirp. You may remember that Dawn and I organized one in MA in June. Well, Dawn is up to it again, this time teaming up with Luke from the Under Clear Skies blog to have an outing in Connecticut. Details about it can be found here and here. Come on out if you are in the area. Last time was great, and I have every confidence that this one will be every bit as much so!
And speaking of those crazy birding, blogging, chirping folks; John from Birding in Maine, has created a web site for Birders who Blog, Tweet, and Chirp! Announcements were made about the unveiling of this site last week while I was away, and I've not had much of a chance to explore the site yet, but what little I've seen looks great. Many thanks to Dawn for starting this all, and to John for carrying the ball to the next step. Check it out and sign up - it's a great way to meet other birders & bloggers.

On Saturday the 18th, I'll also be joining the Brookline Bird Club on their next "extreme" pelagic trip. These trips usually run 3 times a year, and leave from Hyannis, MA and go out past the edge of the continental shelf to Veatch and Hydrographer Canyons in search of whatever pelagic birds can be found. (These trips typically last 17-18 hours!) While not as famous as some of the pelagics that go out south of New England, we've had some really nice sightings in the last few years, including the first NE (and third North American) record of Macaronesian (Little) Shearwater, Band-rumped Storm Petrel, Bridled Tern, both species of Skua, as well as the more expected Greater, Cory's Sooty, Manx, and Audubon's Shearwaters, Parasitic and Pomarine Jaegers, etc. Keeping my fingers crossed for good weather for that one!

Finally, I'll be taking my first stab at hosting an edition of I and the Bird on July 23.

So hopefully, there will be some fun and interesting reading to come this month here at PicusBlog. Stay tuned...