DC and Virginia

In addition to the slightly surreal experience of meeting lots of friends and colleagues in a hotel filled with a thousand or two philosophers, I had time for a couple of additional activities on my trip to Washington, D.C. My first morning there I registered for a researcher’s card at the Library of Congress and then spent a good chunk of the day reading in the magnificent reading room in the Thomas Jefferson Building. I had the room largely to myself — certainly, readers were outnumbered by security personnel.

After the conference was over, I rented a car and drove down to Harrisonburg to visit Jared and Rebekah. Jared is a good friend from my Rosedale days but we hadn’t seen each other in several years; I was glad to get a chance to catch up. Jared also took me on a lovely hike up a ridge looking over the valley, a hike that changed my picture of Virginia forests. I thought bears and ravens belonged in northern forests, but I saw and heard a bunch of ravens and we met some hunters looking for a bear.

Yesterday morning I joined a friendly group of very good birdwatchers for a New Years Day trip around some of the DC birding sites. The only really unusual species we saw was a Cackling Goose at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove. That was a new species for me. If you want a birding challenge, take a look at the picture in the right column and see if you can see how it differs from a Canada Goose. Most of the birds we saw are more or less common birds, but it was nice to see some American birds again. I especially liked the Bufflehead flock that we found in Constitution Gardens — they’re one of my favourite ducks.

And now I’m back in England, getting ready for another interview that is going to be conducted via Skype. I understand the trend to doing interviews by Skype, but I can’t say I look forward to it. I’d rather be in the same room as my interviewers.

Sydney

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2 Responses to DC and Virginia

  1. David says:

    Good luck!

  2. Heidi says:

    Best of luck with the interview!

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