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Post by job on Jul 21, 2013 6:18:44 GMT -6
I finally got to see a Pileated Woodpecker yesterday. My wife has spotted them in the past, but I never saw one until yesterday. It was huge.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 21, 2013 7:27:08 GMT -6
I would love to see a Pileated Woodpecker. the most unusual bird I have had around my house has been a northern bobwhite which I think had came from a hunting preserve around here.
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Post by job on Jul 21, 2013 8:19:33 GMT -6
Because of the Lake, we get a number of exotic birds migrating through. A couple of years ago, a Snowy Owl was spotted a couple of miles from our house.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 21, 2013 11:09:31 GMT -6
I have seen some snowy owls east of Streator in the farm fields a few years ago. in fact there was a story in the times press about them being here so far south. what is really interesting to see now job is the pelicans that come up the Illinois river in the spring. we use to have a few in morris in the first years now there is 100s swimming in the quarry south of morris.
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Post by job on Jul 21, 2013 11:20:26 GMT -6
We spent a week at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad a few years ago. asawright.org/ It is quite a place. The lodging are in a former plantation with a veranda overlooking the rainforest. Because Trinidad is only nine miles from South America, there are thousands of tropical birds in the rainforest. My favorite was the Bell Bird, so named because it emits a sound like a loud bell. Our daughter was writing an article about the place, and got to know the guides quite well. We nearly panicked one night when our daughter was in the rain forest well after dark.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 21, 2013 12:28:42 GMT -6
that sounds like a fascinating locale. I would like to take a cruise down the amazon river basin and see the wildlife. I spent a lot of my younger years scuba diving all over the Caribbean.
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Post by job on Jul 21, 2013 12:33:35 GMT -6
that sounds like a fascinating locale. I would like to take a cruise down the amazon river basin and see the wildlife. I spent a lot of my younger years scuba diving all over the Caribbean. I too have done a lot of scuba diving in the Caribbean. I have to agree with Cousteau; Cozamel is the best dive spot in the Caribbean.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 21, 2013 13:15:08 GMT -6
Cozumel has the best diving I have ever seen. I made an underwater video of a dive we made down there 2002 before it become so commercialized. the fish were so plentiful I couldn't see my daughter in some of the scenes.
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Post by job on Jul 21, 2013 13:34:46 GMT -6
Cozumel has the best diving I have ever seen. I made an underwater video of a dive we made down there 2002 before it become so commercialized. the fish were so plentiful I couldn't see my daughter in some of the scenes. When I dove there it was not a cruise ship stop. The little town of San Miguel was a great place to hang out.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 21, 2013 16:59:21 GMT -6
there was one cruise company docking there my first visit. the town center was fabulous and on Sundays the Mexican families would gather there dancing and eating. I have been there three times and would go back again if I had the chance.
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Post by job on Jul 22, 2013 8:35:26 GMT -6
there was one cruise company docking there my first visit. the town center was fabulous and on Sundays the Mexican families would gather there dancing and eating. I have been there three times and would go back again if I had the chance. You can always grab a wet suit and dive in one of the local quarries, great visibility, three to four feet.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 22, 2013 8:53:45 GMT -6
i have dived the Illinois river so many times i cant count. the visibilities there is 6 inches on a good day. i have been diving in chillicothe, Brandon road quarry in Joliet and various farm ponds around the state. i started diving for work then it became a pleasure to dive in the warm waters of the Caribbean.
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Post by job on Jul 22, 2013 10:30:15 GMT -6
i have dived the Illinois river so many times i cant count. the visibilities there is 6 inches on a good day. i have been diving in chillicothe, Brandon road quarry in Joliet and various farm ponds around the state. i started diving for work then it became a pleasure to dive in the warm waters of the Caribbean. Anyone who became PADI certified in the Midwest became familiar with quarries, at least for their check out dives. Any fire department in the Chicago area that has a pond, lake or river in town has divers. The guys at the Orland Fire Protection District invited me to swim beneath the ice in the Joliet quarry one year. I declined telling them that I had seen the Tony Curtis movie where he played Houdini and was trapped under the ice in the Detroit River.
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Post by dive61364 on Jul 22, 2013 21:27:56 GMT -6
i have been ice diving on two occasions. its a different world under the ice. brandon road quarry is where most check out dives were done years ago. i am a trained padi diver. i did my check out dive in chillichothe back in 1992.
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Post by job on Jul 23, 2013 6:05:06 GMT -6
i have been ice diving on two occasions. its a different world under the ice. brandon road quarry is where most check out dives were done years ago. i am a trained padi diver. i did my check out dive in chillichothe back in 1992. I was PADI certified at some point in the early 80s at a Y in one of the suburbs. However, after about my second lesson, we took a trip to Jamaica. While we were there, I told the guy who owned the dive shop that I was learning to scuba dive. He said, "[n]o problem, I take you down." He put me in an Octopus rig and away we went. At one point, the extra regulator go face up and made the predictable hissing sound. It scared me half to death until I figured out what was happening. We got down around forty feet. At another point, the dive master grabbed my arm and pulled me over to a small cave. He reached into the cave and the water quickly because turbulent by the cave. When we got to the surface, he said, "[d]id you see that heel? I slapped him." I finally figured out that he was talking about a Moray Eel. I could have killed the guy.
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