Spent a few hours Monday afternoon at Castlewood, mostly along the River Trail. After striking out on CERULEAN WARBLER Sunday at Lost Valley, I whiffed again Monday, so it is with some chagrin that I read Charlene found the little blue devils Monday at LV and singing their heads off, to boot. Seems like I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time when it comes to those guys. I listened to the song several times over the weekend and have it pretty well memorized, but I never heard it in either place either day. Very cool and windy Monday, so not much singing or activity going on along River Trail. Even so, got one YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER high in a sycamore, as usual, and again had quite a few NORTHERN PARULA and BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER. Heard several PROTHONOTARY WARBLER and watched one catch and devour a nice big winged insect about 10 feet away in a persimmon tree. Heard and saw FISH CROW, and there were about half-dozen TURKEY VULTURES perched in a dead, Y-shaped tree across the Meramec. Flying over river saw three kinda swallows: TREE, BARN and NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED. Not much else out of the ordinary or that I hadn't seen Sunday. Best bird otherwise was PILEATED WOODPECKER on the River Trail downstream from the boat ramp. I spotted him (he had the red moustaches) as I was detouring off the trail and starting to come down from the old ruined water reservoir or whatever those big walls are, so I was uphill from him. I got to watch him for quite a while looking down on him while he worked on a fallen log. The log was really rotten, and it was amazing to see how far the chips flew, like 5 feet, when he was hammering on it. Also got to hear him laughing/calling and flying around to several tree trunks, probably observed him 15 minutes in all. Last stop was GROTPETER TRAIL just on the park entrance side of the road that crosses the creek via the fenced bridge, where it starts to go up the hill behind the big soccer/ballfield. I was hoping to hear or see WORM-EATING WARBLER. Went most of the way up the slope but didn't find any. There was a KENTUCKY WARBLER singing along the creek, but I never saw him. So it will be back to work Tuesday, and probably next weekend b4 I get another chance to look for CERULEAN or WORM-EATING. Sigh. But what's that they say about unlucky in love? Maybe it works w/ birds, too. Despite striking out both days on CERULEAN and Monday on WORM-EATING, I thought I would try my luck at the Casino Queen on the way home. I don't go there often, but as Mike Brady knows, I seem to have good luck on days I've been birding. This was my first time there since February, at least. Bought my usual $50 in $1 tokens and played slots. I soon hit for $150. I decided I was willing to settle for tripling my money, but I like to leave with a round figure in my pocket. I still had a few dollars over $150, so I decided to drop them in the progressive slot on the off chance of winning that $15,000. I didn't hit the really big one, but I kept hitting for $10 here, $20 here. Then I hit for another $100. It was crazy. I actually was just trying to lose until I had a nice round figure for my winnings, and I kept winning. I wanted to get home to watch "The American Experience" episode about Seabiscuit, and it was getting embarrassing. On one spin, I had two blue 7s and was a half-turn of the reel away from the third, which would have hit for $450. I finally cashed out at $278, and threw those extra $3 in the progressive slot one more time just to even it out. Thank God I didn't win again, ha ha. Walked off the boat with a tidy $225 profit and my original $50. That eased the pain of missing the CERULEAN a bit, and I made it home in time to see the TV show. And BTW, if you missed it, the documentary about Seabiscuit was awesome! Watch for a repeat. If you haven't read the recent bestseller "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," I highly recommend it. The documentary had lotsa original footage from newsreels, a lotta comments from the author and was filmed by the same people who did the feature motion picture, based on the book, that is coming out in July and starring Toby Maguire of "Spiderman" fame. I can't wait to see the movie, but I'll have to take a box of Kleenex. Hell, I'm so sentimental about horse racing (the family curse) and the whole "underdog people's champion" mystique of Seabiscuit that I even cried during the damn documentary! So if you're out birding in the next month or so and see a guy crying b/c he just saw a CERULEAN WARBLER, it's probably me. Good birding to all! Steve Whitworth, Glen Carbon, Madison County, IL _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail __________________________________________________ * Audubon Society of Missouri's * * Wild Bird Discussion Forum * *------------------------------------------------* * To unsubscribe send the message * * SIGNOFF MOBIRDS-L * * to [log in to unmask] * * To subscribe send the message * * SUBSCRIBE MOBIRDS-L your name * * to [log in to unmask] * *------------------------------------------------* * To access the list archives from July 2002 on: * * http://po.missouri.edu/archives/mobirds-l.html * ##################################################