You may recall that last March I sent out a plea for help to finish up the Basham Class 1 birds on my list. Many of you responded with suggestions for sure fire locations and I was successful in rounding up the last of them except for the Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow. We left on June 14 to spend a couple of weeks in New England to look for it.

We decided to also try for Bicknell's Thrush at Whiteface Mt., NY, Mt. Mansfield, VT, and Mt. Washington, NH. Even though the thrush is not a class 1 bird, it is one of the few possible life birds for me in this part of the country. Joe Byrnes, Roger Heintz, Dan Baxter, and Scott Morical were especially helpful in my attempts here. Results were: rained out, rained out and rained out. Drat! Have to try again some other time - preferably the first week in June.

We moved on the the coast of ME and thanks to suggestions from Patrick Comins, Rusty Scalf, Daan Sandee, and Lysle Brinker I was able to locate the Nelson's at Weskeag Marsh near Thomaston, ME and get good views of both Sharp-taileds at Scarborough Marsh in SE ME. (By the way, the Maine Audubon Society just reopened its Nature Center at Scarborough Marsh and it is very nice!)

After the obligatory stop in Freeport, ME to visit L. L. Bean's emporium, we toured Boston for a couple of days and then moved on to Warick, RI to look for Monk Parakeet. (Also not Class 1, but we were in neighborhood, and it was the last of the New England possible life birds.) Regrettably, the RI population of Monk Parakeets has apparently crashed: we were told by a non-birder resident that the total population is now only a few birds. We couldn't locate any nests and missed seeing the birds that remain.

We pressed on Stratford, CT to visit friends and look again for the Monk Parakeet on Milford Point in Milford, CT at the Audubon Society's South Coastal Management Center. Patrick Comins had mentioned this is a good spot to see Monk Parakeets, but that they were not always reliable. Well, it was as if the birds wanted to show off for us. We arrived at 1:15 in the afternoon on the 24th; the birds came into a tree by the parking lot at 1:16. We enjoyed watching about 8 of them for 5 minutes or so when they left as abruptly as they came. We walked around the refuge for a hour or so (missed the Piping Plovers this time, but saw Oystercatchers and expected species), hoping the Parakeets would return. They didn't.

That evening, in conversation with our friends, who are non-birders, one of them mentioned seeing "parrots" quite often not far from his home at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival grounds.

We went over the next morning and stumbled on a half-dozen Monk Parakeet nests in the pines(!) on the west side of the theater and at least a dozen of the birds. Great views for over 30 minutes! Thanks to Phil Davis's postings about the status of Monk Parakeets around the country, I am quite comfortable about counting these birds.

That's it! We came home through the Catskills but thought it too late to make further attempts to see Bicknell's Thrush. We'll try again another year.

Thanks to all of you who participate in Birdchat. It is a great forum and it is certainly helpful to have a resource that can guide us to our next life bird. Having now seen all the Class 1 birds (at least until the splitters strike again), my next birding goal will be to see the even dozen Class 2 birds that have so far evaded my binoculars. I will post that wish list in August or September along with whatever (mis)information I have about them.