The New River Neos

A feature article in todays Sunday Gazette-Mail [Charleston, West Virginia] by Rick Steelhammer discusses the dreams and aspirations of the New River Neos (Neos being shorthand for Neotropical migrants), a team of four birders from Fayette County, West Virginia, who will be competing in this years World Series of Birding in Cape May, New Jersey, on May 10. The World Series of Birding is a competition in which teams of birders compete to see who can tally the most species of birds in a 24-hour period. This will be the first time, I believe, that a team from West Virginia has competed in this event, and I wish them the very best of luck. But if Roger Tory Peterson actually shows up for the event, as this article claims he will, he will have accomplished a feat that has eluded the likes of Harry Houdini and Edgar Cayce. Peterson, famous for his series of bird field guides and long the dean of North American birders, died in 1996 at the age of 87.