Win a trip to a birding hotspot!

If you reply to one of two questions in each issue of WildBird, you could become eligible for a trip to a birding hotspot. What a deal!

Two departments -- Birder's Back Yard and The Lister's Forum -- each pose a question for readers to answer. Well-written responses appear in a future issue, and two respondents receive kudos as Backyard Birder and Forum Birder. They receive certificates suitable for framing, Swarovski squall jackets and copies of Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion and The Shorebird Guide from Houghton Mifflin.

Those winners then become eligible for the Birder of the Year contest, where readers vote for the birder who most worked for the benefit of birds or other birders. Previous Birders of the Year received optics and trips to southwest Florida, Cape May and south Texas. I accompanied Leigh Johnson, the 2005 Birder of the Year, to south Texas in April 2006.

The 2007 Birder of the Year will receive a Swarovski 8x32 EL and might visit a hotspot south of the border. Could it be you? Turn to Birder's Back Yard and The Lister's Forum in each issue, and send a reply by the deadline.

Good luck!