Sticking close to home again this morning, a stroll at Freeport’s Florida Lake Park produced a very agitated Marsh Wren (breeding here?), an American Bittern (always a treat to see), and two male Canada Warblers (one singing, one seen).

The other day, I was tagged by the “8 Random Facts Meme” from my friend David LaPuma and his Woodcreeper.com blog.

Apparently, it’s like bad blog karma or something to not partake in these shenanigans, so I guess I have no choice.

The rules are as follows:
· Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
· People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
· At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
· Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
OK. Whatever. Anything for good blog karma; don’t want to upset the balance of the blogosphere, afterall.

So, here are my 8 Random Facts:
1) My favorite birds are, in no particular order, Cedar Waxwing, Swallow-tailed Kite, Merlin, and Black-throated Blue Warbler.
2) In college, I once ate 100 buffalo wings in 100 minutes. I didn’t feel so great afterwards.
3) In junior high, I won the “Best Defensive Player” award at baseball camp. That week, I had one hit. I was the prototypical late inning defensive replacement and pinch runner. My baseball “career” was short lived.
4) My five favorite restaurants, in no particular order, is the Great Lost Bear, Mac’s Grill, The Mediterranean Grill, Saeng Thai, and Asmara.
5) Since Dave’s 8 Random Facts brought up sense of smell, or lackthereof, I thought I would share the fact that I have a poor sense of smell after having sleep apnea corrective surgery when I was in college. Hey, at least I don’t snore anymore! (Does that count as another fact?)
6) I find simple things like writing down 8 simple facts to be unreasonably difficult.
7) My first internship was studying the effects of pesticides on birds in orchards of Eastern West Virginia. We had to band, and take blood samples from, birds while wearing Tyvek suits and rubber gloves. That was hot.
8) I like candy.

And the 8 Blogs that I am now tagging.
1) Dan Nickerson’s Raven Watcher natural history blog.
2) The art world of my very talented cousin Greg Siff.
3) Jeff Bouton’s Leica Birding Blog.
4) Mike Greenfelder’s "Sunset Chasing" blog, documenting his Big Year Competition.
5) Drew Fulton’s “Of Emus and Fairy Wrens” following his bird photography travels across Australia.
6) Jeff Wells’ Boreal Bird blog at the Boreal Songbird Initiative.
7) Bill Schmoker’s BRDPICS blog.
8) David’s Woodcreeper.com, just because he sent this blasted Meme to me and I can’t think of any more blog to tag myself.