Creek Running North

Oh wow, now I am really curious what came in that package!

Sort of in keeping with this birding report:
We’ve had a lot of rocket and mortar attacks in the last few days.  As a result we need to go everywhere in body armor and helmet, so Saturday was a day of birding in “full battle rattle,” weapon included, of course.  At the laundry pond was a squacco heron clambering around in a patch of reeds.  A great egret flew over while I was checking out the bar swallows to see if there was anything different; there wasn’t.
Several of our personnel had to go to the far south for a site visit.  On the way, the helicopter hit a bird.  It traveled through one of the windows near the pilot’s feet and into the helicopter.  Everyone took pictures.  Ther bird was a male pin-tailed sand grouse.  I’d like to see one alive, maybe later this year.

from a new book Birding Babylon: A Soldier’s Journal from Iraq, by Sergeant Jonathan Trouern-Trend.