I agree with Georgia. When it comes to botany vs. birds, I'll take the birds
anytime. Much easier to learn, less terminology and the Latin is less
necessary because the common terminology is more uniform.
    And yes, I took Charlie Davis' course several years ago. He is very good
at what he does and if anybody wants a good basic understanding of plants,
he teaches two courses at Hopkins: plant identification and tree
identification. This is in the Odyssey Program which is not nearly as
expensive as their " real courses". For about $300 you get a nice 8-10 week
course in something real interesting. David Holmes teaches a bird ecology
course in this program which is supervised by Charlie Stein, a very
interesting guy, too. I took several of them and loved it.
I highly suggest some of you more conservative types take some of these
courses. It'll loosen you up quite a bit.
    Jerry