Saturday in February

February
From the Birds of Northern Illinois Calendar Series
By Pete Olson
2007
archival inkjet print
11 x 17"

My friend Pete Olson (www.peterolsonbirds.com) and I were planning to head to the Winthrop Harbor Yacht Club today for the 7th annual Illinois Ornithological Society's Gull Frolic, but the forecast for inclement weather with 40 mph gusts later this afternoon kept us in DeKalb. Pete is a famous bird artists in Northern Illinois and an avid birder, and the one responsible for my love and dedication for birds. We started birding together two winters ago after I met him through Kim. Pete is the assistant director at the NIU Art Museum where Kim has been a graduate assistant since 2005.
So what to do on a cold, windy February Saturday? I can continue working on Pete's website, a project I started working on a little over a year ago. I also made Kim's website (www.kimberlystrom.com) to display her photographic work. It needs some updating as well, and today would be a great day to do that. And maybe I'll spend some time building Bluebird boxes for the DeKalb County Forest Preserve. I'm scheduled to meet with the DCFP superintendent Terry Hannan in a few weeks to pick locations for nest boxes and setup a Bluebird monitoring trail at Afton Forest Preserve and Wilkinson-Renwick Marsh Forest Preserve. So it seems there is plenty to keep me busy on a cold, windy February Saturday. And just think, we saved ~8 gallons in gas that we would have consumed on the 150 mile voyage to the Harbor and back.