Hobbies

When classes are not in session and I'm not in the lab or field, you might find me playing tennis, in a boat, or out birdwatching (especially prowling for owls ), or chasing dragonflies.  Oh, and when the weather is warm (which is all year here in Conway save maybe six weeks) you might find me digging, weeding, or picking vegetables in my garden .  The Myrtle Beach area has pretty nice beaches, and my wife Amy and son Sam and I like to visit when we can.  Oh, and I'm building a rowboat.

Whitewater kayaking

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This picture is me, surfing a wave on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, atypically upright  : -)

Unfortunately, this part of South Carolina is flat as a pooltable, so short of driving six hours to the mountains, I have to settle for occasional kayak surfing at the beach to scratch my boating itch, or else resort to extreme measures.

The Garden

Had a sedentary day in front of the computer in an airconditioned office?  My antidote is to dig in the garden when I get home.  Last summer  I probably went for over a month eating at least something from the garden every day, and we kept harvesting at least the occasional item into October.  Does it pay for itself?  Well, we grew (and juiced and drank) about 150 lbs of carrots in 2002, and lots else .  Let's just say it's cheaper and tastier than going into therapy. 2005 update. With a toddler to care for, I scaled back the garden a little the last two years, but if popcorn counts, we now eat garden produce year-round!

Birdwatching

Ironically, since I've become a professional ornithologist, I have less time than ever before in my life for birdwatching.  Luckily, my fieldwork takes me into wonderful salt marshes, and I lead enough field trips for the Waccamaw Audubon Society and the annual Tidelands Birding Festival and for my ornithology and ecology classes that I get into the woods, fields, and islands at least once in a while.  As I write this, the Christmas Bird Count is right around the corner - another great excuse to spend all day (and half the night) in the field.  Horry County has a wonderful community of birders and conservationists whom I've gotten to know through the Audubon Society.  A good local link for birders is the Carolinabirds list, from which you can pick up some of the pulse of birding in the North and South Carolina.   Tweeters is a freewheeling birder's listserv centered on the Pacific Northwest (Pacific Southwest if you're Canadian, I guess).  I lived in western Washington for five years and still check in on Tweeters once in a while.