We have our second winner in our Readers' Favorites Survey!
In our December 2009 issue, we asked you to tell us your favorite places in the United States and Canada to see warblers, and as you did when we requested locations to watch eagles, you came through.
Big time.
Many, many thanks for taking the time to share your expertise, and thank you for your comments. Once again, your responses will help us paint a colorful, useful portrait of birdwatching in North America -- and just in time for the spring migration.
We’ll publish the results of the warbler survey right here on BirdersWorld.com and also in our upcoming April 2010 issue, scheduled to appear on newsstands on March 2.
By that time, Cathy Theisen of Ann Arbor, Michigan, will have a brand-new pair of binoculars. Hers was the name that came up when we conducted our drawing for the Monarch 8x36 binoculars generously provided by our partner, Nikon Sport Optics. You can see Cathy pictured here.
Read about the binocular winner from our first Readers' Favorites Survey.
For information about Nikon Sport Optics, visit http://www.nikonbirding.com/?source=birdersworld.
Cathy, a veterinarian, is a member of the Washtenaw Audubon Society and an accomplished birder with a life list approaching 600 species. (She and a guide saw 110 species in a single day in Costa Rica!) So she knows a thing or two about finding warblers. She selected the following four hotspots as her favorites (all are in her home state, and one is in her hometown):
Mio, Grayling - Two famous jumping-off points for tours of the core breeding range of the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler. Mio, in Oscoda County, is the gathering place for outings organized by the U.S. Forest Service. Grayling, in Crawford County, is the departure point for tours conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Michigan Audubon Society.
Tawas Point, on Lake Huron - Well-known gathering place for waterfowl and shorebirds from early March through May, and a stopover point for all sorts of northbound migrants in May.
Whitefish Point, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula - Projecting into Lake Superior, a natural funnel that concentrates migrant birds by the tens of thousands every spring and fall. Site of the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory.
Nichols Arboretum - The University of Michigan’s beautiful hundred-year-old collection of native and exotic trees and shrubs in Ann Arbor. 
Right in Cathy's backyard. Nichols Arb is great for spring and fall migration, she says, but it's not the setting for her best birdwatching story. That distinction goes to Banff National Park in Canada.
"I was setting up a scope to glass a pond that the park ranger had sent us to for waterfowl, only about 10 minutes in from the road. I caught movement from the corner of my eye and turned to see a sub-adult grizzly coming up the trail! He made a wide circle around us and went on foraging, but left me tingling with excitement. One of the peak experiences of my life!” (For future reference, bear updates from Banff are available here.)
How does Cathy plan to use the Nikon Monarch binoculars she won in our drawing?
“For sharing. I take a lot of novices birding," she writes. "Most notably, I have a little sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters (phone 888-412-BIGS). She is working on her life list and will be delighted that I have a second pair of good binos!”
You can win a Nikon binocular, too!
Here's how: On December 28, two weeks from today, we'll start our third Readers' Favorites Survey. In it, we'll ask you to tell us your favorite places to find hummingbirds. Please do so! If you take the survey by January 22, 2010, we'll enter your name in a drawing for another Nikon Monarch 8x36 binocular. (One entry per person, please.) We'll tally the results and publish the list of your favorite hummingbird spots in our June 2010 issue.
Congratulations, Cathy! --Chuck Hagner, Editor
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