Dear Web Grazhdanin Bababine: Greetings once again from Anchorage. I send you a small message at about Christmas time. Again, I am ³tickled pink² about your Irkutsk Homepage. Keep up the good work. I liked the Irkutsk Artists section, specially photo of and work by Sergei Korenev. I used to live in the same building as Korenev on Litvinov Street and I saw him almost every day. I wish I could E-mail him a bottle of vodka. Also I liked the nature section about Pribaikalia. I was at the exact spot shown in photo ³Source of the Lena.² I sent E-mail messages to both addresses given with these two pages but got no response. Also, I sent to a letter via your ³E-Mail Gate² which I wanted you to sent to someone (Olga Vasilieva). Did you receive this letter? As I told you in the note with this letter, I will be glad to send letters to the USA for you. Just E-Mail them to me, I will print them out and mail them. A letter to anywhere in the USA takes no more than four days from Alaska. I am enclosing a story about a recent ³vistor² to America from Lake Baikal. I hope you enjoy it. Don Croner (dbcroner@alaska.net) Siberian Bird Journeys Around the Globe to Colorado NOAH ADAMS, Host: Off course by a few thousand miles but apparently happy and splashing around at a mountain stream in Colorado - a female Baikal Teal. The bird was migrating from Lake Baikal in Siberia. It's very rare in North America and this has caused quite a commotion in the town of Kittredge, Colorado. Bill Brockner is the champion bird watcher in that area. It was Brockner's wife who called to inform him of the visitor. Someone she knew had seen the strange bird swimming around with the mallards. BILL BROCKNER, Audubon Society Member: I received a call on November 28th, through my wife, on an odd duck. She had made notes on this bird and gave me the notes and asked me what I thought it was, whereupon I just about had a cardiac arrest because I knew instantly what it was. ADAMS: When she described it, what was the tip off for you? Mr. BROCKNER: She described a bird smaller than a mallard, teal size, with two white dots at the base of the bill. And that was the dead giveaway. ADAMS: Was the Baikal Teal a bird that you had been dreaming about? Mr. BROCKNER: I have been wanting to see the Baikal Teal for all my life. ADAMS: Did your wife say, `You better come quick, it's down here at the creek?' Mr. BROCKNER: Well, when my wife told me, I said, `Let's get up there immediately.' And so we roared up to the pond where the bird was living with some mallards. Then I put on my telescope and binoculars and my dreams were answered. ADAMS: Now, you have- isn't there something in birding called the `life list?' Mr. BROCKNER: Yes, correct. ADAMS: In North America, how many birds are on the life list? Mr. BROCKNER: You have a potential in the neighborhood of 850 birds. ADAMS: Would the Baikal Teal be one of them? Mr. BROCKNER: The Baikal Teal is one of them. ADAMS: And how many have you seen? Mr. BROCKNER: I have seen 736. ADAMS: You've got kind of a ways to go. Mr. BROCKNER: I do but once you pass 700 it becomes a bigger and bigger job all the way along the line. ADAMS: How do you figure the Baikal Teal got to Bear Creek, there in your part of Colorado? Mr. BROCKNER: I feel that the bird got caught up in one of the north Pacific storms that were heading toward North America. And the bird just followed along with the storm and came over the Aleutian chain and perhaps down along the Pacific Coast and then worked back over across Idaho, Montana, perhaps into Colorado. ADAMS: Trying to go where? BROCKNER: It just was looking for a good spot to get away from the rough weather. ADAMS: Now, I want to clear something up. We read in the Los Angeles Times that the bird could be seen through the picture window of the Bear Creek Tavern, right? BROCKNER: That is correct. ADAMS: Let me play you some tape. This comes from the- this is part of the Colorado field report about birds and it mentions a couple of other sights. COLORADO FIELD REPORT: A presumably wintering adult female Baikal Teal was seen again on January 23rd along Bear Creek, near Evergreen. The three most likely places to find the teal are behind Blooming Idiot's Restaurant in Kittredge, the White Barn at Hunter's Point, 1.5 miles upstream, or at the Evergreen Baskin-Robbins, 1.4 miles farther upstream. ADAMS: Is that the same bird? BROCKNER: It is the same bird. ADAMS: Kind of getting around there. BROCKNER: It moves up and down. As the ice forms and it gets frozen in, it will follow a flock of mallards and show up at some other pond. ADAMS: How many bird people have come there? BROCKNER: Over 425 people have been here so far. ADAMS: Four hundred twenty-five people have come to see this bird? BROCKNER: Exactly. ADAMS: From where? BROCKNER: Well, one of them came from England and the rest are from San Diego to Boston. ADAMS: Are these people with a great deal of money and time to spend? BROCKNER: Well, some of them have little or no money and some do have the money to hop an airplane and get over here and see the bird immediately. ADAMS: That's amazing BROCKNER: It's a wild hobby. ADAMS: Bill Brockner. He lives near Kittredge, Colorado, this winter' s home for one Baikal Teal. [This transcript has not yet been proofread against audiotape and cannot, for that reason, be guaranteed as to accuracy of speakers and spelling. (MPC) Copyright 1994 National Public Radio. All Rights Reserved. Siberian Bird Journeys Around the Globe to Colorado., All Things Considered (NPR), 01-25-1993.