What was my three hundredth bird?

THE CANADIAN ROCKIES BY TRAIN, June 9 to 18, 2024: the log.

June 9. Chicago to Vancouver. A hotel on the harbour.

June 10-12, Vancouver, three nights. The big park with the totem poles and the sea wall; the market on the island under the bridge; on the 11th the ferry to Victoria and back, an hour and a half each way among islands. That ferry gave me five new birds from the rail: glaucous-winged gull, pelagic cormorant, pigeon guillemot, a black oystercatcher on a reef, and a rufous hummingbird in the garden at the other end. 297.

June 13. On the train at 7:30. Two days, sleeping the night between in a hotel in Kamloops. A glass roof over our seats. Our table for both days: Corinne and Hal Jessup of Sun Lakes, Arizona. She quilts. He was in the Navy.
Up the Fraser canyon in the morning; along the Thompson in the afternoon. Ospreys on every other pole.

June 14. Kamloops to Banff, the long day, and the best. In the afternoon the train went along a river the colour of milk, and on it, on a rock in the rapids, a HARLEQUIN DUCK, a male (298), and ten minutes later an American dipper walking into the water off a ledge (299).
Then the spiral tunnels. And while the train stood in a siding east of there, waiting for a freight, a gray and black bird landed on the top of a spruce at the level of the window: CLARK'S NUTCRACKER.

That is number 300. June 14, 2024, about four in the afternoon, from a train, at the top of the pass. I have kept the list since 1978. I told Corinne, and she told the car, and they clapped.

June 14-17, Banff, four nights. Lake Louise on the 15th; the icefield road on the 16th, by coach, with a walk out onto the glacier in a vehicle with tires taller than Ray. A black bear from the coach. Three more birds round Banff itself: mountain chickadee, Townsend's warbler, Barrow's goldeneye on the river. 303.

June 17. Dinner with the Jessups, the last night.

June 18. Coach to Calgary and home.

Ray's knee: perfect. Ray's ears: he heard the guide. Ray's sugar: the train feeds you every two hours and he tested high twice.

Sit on the right-hand side the first day and the left the second.