birds and a recipe

So I grew a lot of dill.  And here is a recipe I came up with to use a very small fraction of the tremendous volume of dill taking over my garden:

Mango Arugula Salad with Lemon Dill dressing ( fancy title for easy but freaky good food)
Serves 3-4

2 cups arugula (baby or whatever you like, add more if you want)
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/2 cup cucumber, seeds and skin removed,  diced
Ripe mango - the yellow creamy kind (not the green kind), diced

Dressing:
Juice of one juicy lemon
at least 2 very large Tablespoons of fresh dill (I used about 3 Tbs), finely chopped
Really good olive oil
Generous sea salt and pepper (tsp each)

Whisk together the dressing toss with the salad. Serve. Yum.

In addition to making fabulous salad, I went bird watching at Fort Morgan, AL and Daphine Island using the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail for my guide. I have done this route before and this time of year it should be full of birds. The weather is such (excellent, winds from the south) that the birds are not stopping.

Here is my bird list in the order I spotted them.  If I saw a species at an earlier location I did not note it at later spot.  (For example cardinals, mocking birds, and blue jays were every where. No need to keep writing them down.)

Entrance to Fort:
Swaison's warbler
Brown thrasher
Peregrine falcon
American oyster catcher (fishing pier)
Northern gannet (beach)
Laughing gull (everywhere)
Mocking bird
Brown pelicans
Cardinals
Common loon
Snowy egret
Cattle egret
Brown headed cow birds
Eastern king bird
Blue jays

Next I took the ferry to Dauphin Island and started looking around Fort Gaines and Pelican Point:
Herring gull
Rudy turnstone
Royal terns
Scissor tail flycatcher (!, note that this supposedly rare species has been seen by me twice, once at Ft. Morgans in the fall and now again at Ft Gaines in the spring. humph. )
Yellow-rumped warbler

Next I went to the Shell mounds:
Yellow bellied sapsucker
Red bellied woodpecker
Northern water thrush
Hooded warbler
Black and white warbler
White-throated sparrow
Lincoln sparrow (going out on a limb with this one)
Common grackle
Carolin wrens
Great blue herons (nesting)
White eyed vireo
Chimney swifts


At the Airport:
Mottled duck (looking lonely)
Reddiish egret (fabulously good looking but I had not time to get my camera)
Willet
Redwing black bird
Song sparrow (definite)

Lastly, I found the Goat trees:
Yellow vireo
Cedar wax wings
Northern parula
Red eyed vireo

Also noted in several spots:
Double crested cormorants
Morning doves
Eurasian collared doves

About 44 species, give or take.  Considering it was a crappy bird day (few warblers during migration), not too shabby considering I was by myself. If the weather keeps up being fabulous I will have to go back to knitting. 

Lastly, I would like to note that I miss my cats.  They are home in New Orleans while we are here in Alabama and the fact that I miss them  acutely is making Steve think I lost my mind. Which I probably have.