We’ve been very busy these last couple of months traveling, planning, and birding. In April, we had two Texas trips, first to the Upper Texas Coast, followed immediately by our third consecutive year of running a Hill Country & Big Bend trip. Both trips were outstanding, but great birding and fun groups of people. The trip reports and photo galleries for the trips can be found here. We are running the wonderful Upper Texas Coast trip again next year, for the same price as this year’s trip.

We’ve also done quite a bit of local guiding in the Chicago area and around Illinois recently—May is our peak season for local guiding, coinciding with the peak of spring migration. We’ve guided people this spring from Oregon, California, British Columbia, and from around Illinois. Besides day trips around Chicago, we guided a two night trip to far Southern Illinois, a beautiful part of the state with many birds that are rare or don’t occur farther north. You can read about the Southern Illinois trip here. We have another short Illinois trip planned for September 6-8, to study shorebirds and look for migrants in the Illinois River Valley of Central Illinois.