Poin Pelee NP in Ontario is okay for birding by car. Especially the very northern bit is a nice migrant funnel and there are a few car parks where you just stop, get out of the car, sit at one of the picknick tables and watch the warbler waves wash over you. As far as I remember, all the car parks have nice restrooms/changing rooms. The tip – one of the vagrant hotspots – can be reached by a “tram” that leaves from the visitor’s centre. The trails there are hard surface (though not tar) and also contain a boardwalk, so you can bird there easily. The trails through the woodlands are of softer ground. If the stroller has broad tires, I am sure they can be negotiated, but it could be a bit of a work-out for you and your wife.

Nearby Rondeau Provincial Park (breeding Prothonotaries anyone?) is also not bad around its parking lots (scattered restrooms that can be used as changing rooms as well) and I would guess the famous Tulip Tree Trail (where the Prothonotaries are) with its boardwalk should be okay for a stroller. They have a feeder up at the information centre that often attracts Red-headed Woodpeckers. In fact, you can easily spend an hour or more just watching the feeder – it is great.

Crane Creek in Ohio, yes the famous one, can also be done in an okay-way by car: the drive from the visitor’s centre to the boardwalk parking lot leads through fine marshlands where you even have to do your birding from the car. The parking lot right next to the famous small forest through which the boardwalk leads is actually often more productive than the boardwalk itself and photographers usually prefer the parking lot’s forest edge to the boardwalk. And of course I am pretty sure you can do the boardwalk easily with a stroller anyway. The visitor’s centre has certainly a changing room but the boardwalk parking lot (about 15 minutes away by car) has not. Nearby Metzger’s Marsh is great for shorebirds and waders and is purely road-side birding. You’ll need a scope though. A small parking lot with only a handful of trees around it at the end of the road is often amazing for warblers, and you can watch them without even getting out of your car.

My guess is that you can very easily go on a beautiful birding holiday around Lake Erie in May with Lily and see 200+ species, including 30 or more species of warbler.

Additionally, the faaaaamous hawk watch at Lake Erie Metro Park (September/October) is at a boat launch. You can sit in your car, have some sandwiches and watch 100,000 Broadwings go over (okay, admittedly on a good day).

And of course – in case the financial crisis has conveniently bypassed your wallet – Namibia and South Africa are AMAZING countries where birding or mammal watching by car is the way to go!

Well, Lily might not easily make it to the top of mount Everest any time soon, but that sure doesn’t mean life does not have some very fine adventures in store for her (and her parents).

Cheers, and yes, Will, I did sob a bit

Jochen too has become and official bird watcher!

For some reason, escaped Budgies gravitate to House Sparrow flocks. It may be the similarities of their call notes.

It’s doubtful it will survive the winter.

Try enticing it to your hand somehow. I’ve seen that work with other escaped pet birds. Or, I have a capture cage that could help.

Once I was at a traffic light when a bird was flapping on the windshield of cars going in the other direction stopped at the same light. I went over and simply picked a Cockatiel off the wipers of a van – much to the surprise of the occupants. It was a very friendly household pet that had gotten separated from its caregivers. I couldn’t locate its original home so I gave him to a friend who too great care of it.I think the bird recognized that there were people in the van and was simply trying to reconnect. Glad I was there to sort it all out.