Road Trippin'

Ok, so here's one of the stories from Jan's visit. As I mentioned before, she's an avid bird-watcher. Her "life list" is at 550 different species (and if that doesn't seem that impressive, try to name all the different types of birds you've seen in the wild. I think most folks can name about 25). Total, there's somewhere over 800 different species found in the US.

Well, once you've gotten that many birds on your "life list," you can imagine that new birds get harder and harder to find. Either they only habitate one place in the whole country (Like Eurasian Tree Sparrows, who only live in the St. Louis Metro Area), or they're just hard to see (Barn Owls, for example, only come out at night).

Jan really wanted to find a Bachmann's Sparrow. She'd been looking for them a few times before, and never found one. They only live in the Southeast, and they only live in pine forests. So, one of the first days she was here, we headed off to Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge near Macon. There's no easy way to get to Macon from Columbus. It's only about 100 miles, but it takes over two hours one-way.

So we drive... and we drive... and we drive. The stretch to Macon is a very tedious trip. No hills, no valleys, really no towns between here and there. We get to Piedmont, and the park ranger tells us "The sparrows don't start singing until Mid-April." (note to self: Always call first before going to Macon for anything).

Let me explain something about Bachmann's Sparrows here. If the little bastards aren't singing, you aren't going to see them. They hide in the underbrush of the pine forests. When they feel a little frisky, they pop up onto a low branch, sing a little song, then hop back down to the underbrush again. Oh, and they're dirt-colored, so they blend in very well. Anyway, they weren't singing. We wandered around the woods for a few hours, found nothing but gnats, said "Screw this," and left.

Well, there's this tiny little town outside the NWR named Juliette, Georgia. We stop in town for a bite to eat, and it turns out that Juliette is where they filmed the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes." The whole town is actually smaller than a movie studio. In fact, it may be smaller than my apartment. We wanted to eat at the "Whistle Stop Cafe," but it was closed. Everything in Georgia is closed on Mondays. We settled for taking a picture in front of it, and ate at the other restaurant in town, of course dining on Fried Green Tomatoes.

We did eventually find the sparrow, though it required another day-long trip to Quitman, Georgia. 159 miles, one-way. You know what? He looked like a sparrow.