37×1024.jpg” alt=”” width=”937″ height=”1024″ class=”size-large wp-image-1117″ /> Heather and Marcus on the Pacific Crest Trail part of our hike to Government Meadow yesterday. [/caption]
I have known Marcus and Heather Roening for a long time. Marcus has been a prominent Pierce County birder and conservationist for most if not all of the time I’ve lived here, since 1987. More recently I got to know them much better on a birding trip to Morocco. You can hear more about that on several episodes I produced in April 2019. Michael Carmody, the tour leader was my guest on episode #12. We don’t talk much about the trip on this episode, so check there to see more about that trip. I bring this up because it was the time when I feel like I really got to see how fun it was to be around both Heather and Marcus. They are both excellent birders and I enjoyed their company and birding expertise on that trip.

Yesterday we went to Government Meadows, a large meadow near Mt. Rainier, in hopes of finding a few FOY (first-of-year) species for Pierce County. This was Heather’s idea, as we were trying to work out a place to record an episode and she thought it would be fun to do it outdoors, and if we could also manage to find a couple FOY Pierce County birds she might pass Bruce LaBar and go into first place for the most species seen in Pierce so far this year on eBird. We talk on the episode about this ongoing friendly competition. Rain, sleet, snow, and fatigue kept the recording from happening there, and rain pushed us indoors to their garage, a place big and open enough to properly social distance and accomplish the recording.
We saw some great scenery and got a good hike in yesterday, but alas no FOY species for any of us.
I hope you all enjoyed the episode. Feel free to leave comments here with ideas for guests, suggestions for improving the podcast, or just to reach out or give feedback.

Until next time. Good birding. Good day!