Birdsong-n-Bud

My worst find was an old, disgusting used tube of mascara. I was wishing for a tissue to pick it up with. We threw it away, and replaced it with several dollars worth of good stuff. We always try to "leave the box better than we found it." We almost always leave a signature item, a toy, and for the adults (or kids) we throw in a few world coins. Oriental Trading Post has become my best source of trinkets. That said....as a mom, my biggest concern is that my 8 year-old son will continue to be excited at what he finds at the end. So, BRING ON THE McTOYS! I could care less what's in the box, as long as he likes it. Without him, I can't cache. All I care about is the walk with him and the time we spend, and adding as much as we can to the hobby by the time we leave. The walks have been great, he's been excited, and I've yet to keep a trinket for myself. For myself, as said above....I go shopping!

You've obviously never done one of our themed caches. This note was left by an experienced cacher with well over 2,000 finds" "From the containers, to the puzzles, to the awesome final location, this was one of my favorite caches ever." Was the page flashy? No animations, but pictures galore, yes. The flashiness doesn't necessarily stop at the cache page. If you don't see the gifs on your palm pilot, I'm okay with that.

Thanks to you both! Those both make sense to me. I look forward to watching this guy wiggle on my page! Thanks!

Is there a trick to getting an animated gif to work on my cache page? I thought the only pictures I could upload were stills like jpgs. But I've seen some COOL cache pages with animated gifs. Is there a tutorial so I can do this? I have a gif file...just don't know how to html it into the cache page (I can do html for the other stuff, just haven't done a gif yet). Where do I upload it? Thanks,

I would advise against using the nest, because it does promote tampering with nests. It is also illegal to own or take into one's possession a bird's nest, believe it or not. More information about that is listed on the sites that describe the Mirgratory Birds Act, of which this is a severly abridged version: Migratory Bird Act

The rubber toys don't bother me at all. What grossed me out once, though, was finding in a box full of incredible fishing lures, many hand-made (the theme of the box was fishing)....some stoop left a used tube of old and used mascara. I barely wanted to pick it up with my fingers to throw the disgusting thing out. Needless to say, we gave the box a big upgrade with what we left behind. I don't mind if you leave used toys or McToys or rubber toys...but keep it somewhat sanitary.

Thank you, Trail Buzzards! Those look like great caches, and I thank you for the reference. The Welfleet one looks like one I'd love to do, despite the few-hour drive! Printing that one out now, actually! Now that is a wonderful compliment. Thank you! It's enthusiastic cachers like you that keep me addicted to putting them out. Gotta feed the obsession so I can sleep, y'know?

Thank you, Jeremy. The land manager gave us permission as long as people were informed about the access fee, and that we noted that there were no dogs allowed. We'll place the cache wihtin the next 2 mos., and have him send you an email. Many thanks for the support. This is truly remarkable land with a breath-taking natural item there. Thank you. (edited to make quote a "quote")

It is $3/person, free for Audubon members. No parking fee. It was not a special event, but there is a special landmark there that I wanted to bring cachers to. Am wondering if I should try to contact the approver again for details. I had pretty much told him what I mentioned here and he did not feel he'd be allowed to approve it.

Hi there... I have a bit of confusion. I was informed by our (truly wonderful, and I mean that) approver that a cache within an Audubon sanctuary would not likely get approved due to the access fee. We appreciated knowing that before we went through the process of placing a cache. However, I notice there is an attribute for "Access or Parking Fee." Why would this even be an option if we are not allowed to have such a thing? I'm confoozled. Perhaps I'm not understanding the rules clearly? Can someone explain the details of how this works? We know about 3 terrific areas for caches, and we have permission for one great area, until we found out that it may not be approved due to the access fee of $3/person. Thanks for any clarification.

Wowie! I'm psyched about this, too! And then we'll be able to seek water caches (accessible by watercraft) as well! I am liking this! Glad Nancy asked this question, as I've been wondering the same thing myself about putting night caches into their own category.

Okay, I have a couple good ideas for themed night caches. We found one wooded caching place by chance, where there were no "closed after dusk" rules. But this is no easy feat! Is there a trick we don't know about? How do you find places that are open legally after dark? State parks are closed...state forests are closed...ideas anyone??? Is there a resource we might be able to tap into to find places open after dark? Thanks for any suggestions.

Does anyone know a way that I can convert (either online or otherwise) the UTM coordinates of a site into WGS84 coords that I can plug into my GPSr? Thanks in advance!

Ooooooooooo, I am loving you, Capaldo. I am SO there! Thanks!

As a cache owner, DNF's are very vital. If there is one, a cacher might have overlooked it. If there are two, chances are good it may have gone missing and immediatly I'll head out to make sure the cache is intact. It isn't a power trip thing (for me). It's a way of checking the integrity of the cache. I am actually disappointed when I see a DNF logged, not happy. However, the person who won't give out hints needs to really get off their high horse, in my opinion. They seem to have an "I win" attitude when they frustrate cachers.

You're not kidding. My total was $16.49. For 25 tacks! For comparison, my 50 Bright eye reflective tacks were $2.00. But people found them in the day. Yes, I think I'm truly addicted now.

In my opinion, I think that is a very appropriate reason to post a note instead of a DNF log. You never really got to search, and there was an something about the cache that needed obvious tending before you could proceed.

Okay, thanks. Yipes...they don't come cheap.... $10 for 25 tacks, plus shipping. GULP! Okay, here goes. I'm buyin'em. If anyone else has a cheaper source, we'd appreciate suggestions, but we will be purchasing these mucho dollar tacks in the meantime. I never thought I'd see the day when I spent over ten bucks for 25 metal tacks, lol. What a person will do to prevent day finds, lol! Thanks for the lead.

Does anyone know where one can purchase reflective night tacks that are brown or gray in color (not white or orange) so they'll camouflage in the trees better than the white ones do?

LOL I had to chuckle when reading this, as I was noticing that trend happening as well and wondered, "Wussup wit dat??" I tend to take a relaxed attitude toward caching, and I guess the bottom line for me is that a DNF is recordes as "not found"...whether it is done in note form or the more traditional frowny-face. As an owner of multiple hides, I really need to know if someone sought it and couldn't find it, to ensure it has not gone missing. The only problem here is that speed-readers may miss the blue frownies when scanning for DNF's in determining the difficulty level of a cache. But I do see some people as having angst in doing things like...oh, asking for directions when lost (heh heh), admitting they ate forbidden diet food in the closet , or...documenting a DNF with a BIG BLUE frownie beside it. To me, as long as there is a note, it is better than not logging anything at all in the big picture. But I still have to chuckle when I see the note instead of the frownie. You learn a bit about the person's personality through it <grin>.

There were so many good ideas here, I think we'll have to incorporate some of them in to future night-caches, as my imagination is throwing sparks there is so much going on! We put many of your suggestions to work into our new night cache, which was just approved last night. Here are the fruits of your labor: Mr. Jangles. It is dedicated to MUSHTANG, who very generously shared a secret idea of his that we were able to incorporate into the cache. We hope cachers will enjoy it. It was a blast to put out, and took 4-5 visits to finally get it out properly. Tonight is its first night out, so it'll be interesting to see how well it goes. I know that this would really be a fun Halloween adventure. Hope it doesn't get muggled so that in October it can be a good Halloween goal for many. *Edited for link that didn't kick in.

We have a good idea for a night cache, and found the perfect spot in which to place it. I want to make this "different," though. I need some creative enterprising here. Any ideas for making a night cache a stand-out experience? What *don't* you like about some of the night caches you've been to? And are there suggestions you can offer to rev up the experience? Thanks for any input & ideas. We're hoping to make this something out of the ordinary.

Awesome! Thank you! I'm going to save your post reply so I can do that again in the future. Many thanks for the lesson! We'll be using it in an upcoming puzzle cache.

Thank you for the information. I have to admit my ignorance here... I converted it according to the geocode site, but I didn't recognize the format. I tried to use what it gave me as "decimal degrees"....converted my GPSr to read decimal degrees, plugged it in, and then converted my GPSr back to Deg/min/sec. When I plugged that into the Mapquest long/lat to check the address for accuracy, it told me it was an invalid number. The Deg:Min:Sec format on the geocode.com site is written differently than I've ever seen before. For example, instead of hdddºmm.sss, it is written like this: 42:18:21.118N 71:31:55.225W The decimal degrees was written with an extra digit that threw my GPSr, and that might have had something to do with it?? 42.305866 -071.532007 Any idea on how to get this into my GPSr? Thanks.

I have multiple websites that convert numeric waypoints/coordinates to a regular address....but does anyone have a website so I can do the opposite: get a regular address converted to waypoint numbers? Thanks,