I am a 70-year-old native Californian whose grandfather, father and brothers grew up with camping, hunting and fishing as regular activities that took us widely over the northern half of the state. As an adolescent and through my early 30s, I was a fanatical backpacker I have hiked in every state except Vermont- something I must soon rectify. I fell in love with Southeastern swamps — a habitat we have nothing like in the Golden State — my first time far away from home in 1973, with a visit to the Great Dismal Swamp on the Virginia-North Carolina border. After a rather brief career as a family physician, I went back to school in ornithology (I have been a birder since the late 1960s) and finished my working life as an ornithologist with the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology at UC Davis. I remain a research associate with the museum, helping occasionally with field work and with publications and preparation of bird specimens. Field work with the Museum took me to much of the western United States, particularly California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, plus major foreign projects in Chile, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. I enjoyed most aspects of my job, but nothing as much as being afield. I have three ongoing projects dealing with birds: the regional diversity of birds in Zuni, New Mexico (a multi-decade passion), avian monitoring at the Cosumnes River Preserve, California, and I assist in annual surveys for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. These efforts have taken me to South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas over the years. The timbered swamp habitat has a density of life, with a biota quite different from the one I grew up with, that is thrilling to someone with an interest in biology.