Hi Helen --

Birding is *serious* bird-watching -- travel to seek out and look at (and list) birds. We have been to 6 continents (and would have been to the 7th, Australia, last summer if it had not been for Barry's diagnosis) and maybe 35 countries (or more). Guess we have seen almost half the world's birds (there are about 9500 species known).

However, it doesn't have to be an energy intensive hobby, you can do good birding from a cruise ship deck or from a safari bus in Africa, or by sitting on the lodge verandah in Costa Rica sipping rum punch and watching the hummingbird feeders. It is a hobby that gets you out into the world and makes you concentrate *completely* on something to the exclusion of other thoughts.

There is a great book out called "Birding on Borrowed Time" by Phoebe Snetsinger, who was dx'd with advanced melanoma in her 40s and was given 6 months to live. She decided, "wow I had better start *living*" and so she took off around the world birding. Two decades and 8500 species later (a record never topped) she was killed in a car crash in Madagascar after seeing her last "life bird." People who asked about her cancer were told, "it never caught up with me because I kept moving."

Well, we are redoing our plans for Aus in the summer -- seriously going to make it this time!

Gail