Casey started his birding life in the continent of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Budgees and Kookaburas. And what better place than this? He was studying in Queensland, Australia with the School for International Training while at university. At first he was a bit wary as his best friend on the study tour quickly became enthralled with this new hobby. Are you serious??? How can you be so excited about a few feathered animals. But he soon found himself to be getting excited as well.
He went back home to the US with a budding interest in birds and slowly his interests grew. After finishing his degree he took a short term job nest searching with the Forest Service in the Sierra National Forest in Central California. He took a month to get out to California form Maryland birding along the way and hitting a few of the hotspots in the southern US. Upon arriving in California and meeting with fellow nest searchers and bird enthusiasts, his interest in birds continued to grow.
Shortly after, Casey headed to the Philippines for a two year stint in the Peace Corps. The Philippines has tons of endemics but due to excessive forest depletion and the love of Filipinos to eat anything that moves, the birds here are not exactly easy to find. He tried a few places here but did not have too much luck as a novice birder.
For all of the adventures above I do not have anything to detail and I was not even too intrested in keeping a life list. But then I decided to get a bit more serious and enter the realm of true bird nerdom.
While in the Peace Corps, Casey met Laura and after they finished their commitment they decided to do a bit of traveling. Casey attempted with some success to bring Laura into the world of bird nerds. We traveled to Sulawesi and Borneo where there was some great birding to be had and we did this at a relaxed pace without the true vigor necessary for bird nerdom. This all changed for some reason when we hit Thailand. It seems that the birds in Thailand are absolutely amazing and much more prevalent and easy to spot than say in the Philippines. Thailand lies in between a number of flyways and has nearly 1000 species to offer. We certainly had some great finds in Borneo including tons of hornbills but it was not until Thailand that our birding interests were truly peaked. Casey quickly got enraptured with the hobby and brought Laura along with him.
This blog will therefore focus and chronicle our birding life from Thailand 2007 on. I will also make a brief post about our other travels in Sulawesi and Borneo beforehand.
We are not sure where birding will lead us but hopefully we will go to many far flung destinations to find our little feathered friends.
Bird Nerds Away!!!
