Best Birthday present ever...

I have this thing about techie toys. I just love technology and the gadgets. Well this morning I got the best birthday present. A spotting scope. I'm teaching some birding classes for the local Audubon chapter and I've been jonesing for a spotting scope. I didn't want to spend the $$$$$. But someone was nice enough to give me this beautiful present. Thank you, thank you , thank you. Well I just went out to the bay side of the peninsula and then to the beach side of the peninsula and tried out my brand spanking new spotting scope. Oh yeah baby, it's good. This picture is of the new scope sitting on a small tripod, but I also have a taller tripod for use with my digital camera and it works. I'm so excited to have this new tool to use for my upcoming shorebird class. It's going to be great for this class. Shorebirds are strange in that you usually can't get really close to them without them flying down shore. So this way you can spot them down shore and still get a really good look at them. My birthday isn't until Saturday, but I opened this thing up a bit early. I was so excited when I saw it. I'm just about ready for my classes. I will start April 13th. I'm going to have to limit the class size to 25, because the venue is not that big. So I may have to repeat it somewhere down the line. Maybe on the fall migration path here in the great Pacific Flyway. The resort where I work is asking if I will do my beginning bird class sometime in June. So I'm trying to work out the details and negotiate some dates for that. I can't believe I'm teaching these classes to begin with. I'm not an expert, just someone who is willing to learn right along with the class. This is so much fun.