Sailing the bounding main...

...Or something similar to that!

On the first evening of the Midwest Birding Symposium, a little over two hundred of the over eight hundred birders registered went on a boat ride out to the Lake Erie islands and back. We all had high hopes to see some of the many migrating birds winging across the lake, maybe have one land aboard ship for a photo op! And most of all, we hoped for a calm lake...sea sickness...bad...very bad.

Lake Erie has a reputation for getting very rough very quickly, as it is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. The temperature was great, the winds were calm, but the birds were scarce. They need the winds to bring them across the lake to our shore. In any case, we all had a great time!

Me and the Doodles were running late, go figure, and we didn't have time for dinner. To our surprise, there was a buffet on board! The evening was spent socializing, birding and sight seeing.

This is the Goodtime I, good name! That's Ernie and Rondeau Ric waving.

Our hostess with the mostess, Cheryl Harner, aka Weedpicker.

One of the beautiful islands of Lake Erie.

Shipboard birding...looking for something other than a Ring-billed Gull.

Oh my gosh! A Ring-billed Gull! Cover your head...

Chumming for...uh...Ring-billed Gulls with popcorn, yep, popcorn.

What would you use?

We have a large entourage of, you guessed it, Ring-billed Gulls.

Apparently popcorn is one of their favorite foods...

And on your starboard side...a Ring-billed Gull.

Name that bird!

Here's an odd sunset...Ring-billed Gulls of course and the smoking tower in the distance?

Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, just down the road from the BirdMobile.

BOOM!