"I scared a lot of people but I think I did it for the better good," Jason Davis said. "I think I'm the devil. I have a mindset as a devil but I mean I'm a good guy trying to make the world a better place."

Davis was arrested and charged with making bomb threats.

Birds, some of them thrillingly rare or unusual, come here to spend the summer or take a break in their travels. And silvery bass swirl the waters of Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake, testing anglers' patience and willingness to rise early.

Bird-watching and fishing are unexpected and lesser-known attractions at Walt Disney World, but they can delight as much as a twirl in a teacup, a wild ride down an Everest look-alike or a face-to-ears encounter with Mickey Mouse.

Where are the Birds

Disney World lies below that great avian interstate, the Atlantic Flyway. Birds returning from wintering in Central and South America wing directly over Florida, some stopping there for spring and summer breeding, others continuing into the Northeast, Canada and the far north.

"In Florida, you can look up, and there's always something in the sky," says Chris Newton, a bird and animal keeper in the aviary at Animal Kingdom.

Birders with and without their binoculars can see dozens of species. One-third of Disney World's 45 square miles is protected for wildlife. From a bird's-eye view, the lakes, trees, grasslands – even the theme parks teeming with people – are an invitation to come on down.

Waders, herons, land migrants, songbirds, raptors, rails and every species of egret have stopped or stayed in at the park, according to Grenville Roles, curator of birds at Animal Kingdom.

Mallards, egrets and ibises walk the paths beside parkgoers. Moochers of several species stalk the outside tables at restaurants, looking for leftovers. Perching birds prattle and sing in the shrubs and trees. To see less-familiar species, watchers generally need to leave the crowds behind.

Renting a boat or kayak at the Contemporary Resort marina, crossing a short distance across Bay Lake and circling the shoreline of the former Discovery Island reveals a nursery. Hundreds of white ibis, egrets, herons, cormorants and others nest on the island, closed to the public when Animal Kingdom opened.

A quiet walk among the trees in the farm area at Fort Wilderness Campground and Resort produces different delights. A northern parula warbler's buzz-buzz-trill sounds from a low branch, a mockingbird tunes up, a brown thrasher snatches insects in a patch of lawn. The area is rustic but not unpeopled. Yet, walking farther along the paved paths turns up titmice, cedar waxwings and a great-crested flycatcher. Then, suddenly, a bald eagle wings overhead.

Animal Kingdom offers unique opportunities for birders. Almost more parkland than theme park, it's a habitat for a range of birds.

"This is the biggest botanical collection to be developed in the Western Hemisphere in the last hundred years," says Mr. Roles.

Exotic birds show themselves on the self-guided Maharajah Jungle Trek through a manmade forest.

Living peacefully in its savannah where the big cats roam are sarus cranes, at nearly 6 feet, tall enough for the NBA if only they could shoot. Northern orioles are orange flashes nearby. Java green peacocks strut. Bar-headed geese, which in their native Asia migrate over the Himalayas, peck contentedly in the short grass.

For birders, the Red Pavilion is the trek's E-ticket. An enclosed aviary, it has feeding stations that draw its nearly 100 resident exotics into the open. A laminated guide helps trekkers identify birds such as doves, rollers, plovers and the golden pheasant. ("I don't know how something that colorful can survive in the wild," says Mr. Roles.)

The beauty at hand has a purpose.

The park is "the connecting point where we hope to inspire people to conservation action," says Mr. Roles.
Fish Tales and Laughter
The longer our boat cruised the lakes of Disney World, the more fish we caught, the bigger we claimed they were and the more we five and our guide laughed together.

We'd boarded the canopied powerboat before the rising sun drew a golden trail across Bay Lake outside the Contemporary Resort.

Under an agreement with the Bass Federation, a national organization that supports conservation and sport fishing, Disney World offers fishing excursions that depart from resort marinas parkwide. The natural Bay Lake and the manmade Seven Seas Lagoon, where much of the angling takes place, are bass-rich.

"There are just a zillion fish out here," says our guide, Charlie Brown.

The lakes were stocked in the 1960s with more than 70,000 young largemouth bass, which were allowed to grow and reproduce undisturbed until fishing excursions were begun in 1977, Disney publicists say.

All angling is catch-and-release, though the osprey flying past our boat with a fish in its talons hadn't gotten the memo. Egrets watch our progress, hoping we'll share our cache of minnows.

Charlie baits our hooks and we wet our lines as the boat putt-putts around the former Discovery Island and along the lakes' shores. Five minutes into our two-hour float, and one woman in our three-woman, two-man group brings aboard a 2-pound largemouth. It's weighed, admired, photographed and set free.

Charlie checks his sonar fish-finder and says, "Fish are everywhere."

Sure enough, we catch more 2- to 3-pound bass as we cozy up near docks where they like to hide. Then more. And more.

We banter, and we breathe in the cool morning air. We watch the shorebirds and are amazed by the egrets' audacity.

We tally 20 catches before we return to land. And once ashore, we regale friends and one another with details of our prowess.

With each telling, the fish become weightier, longer and prettier. It's Mouse magic at work, I think. Then I laugh.

When You Go

Birding

A field guide and binoculars are useful, but many birds can be seen and enjoyed without such gear. Look wherever you go in the parks; organized bird walks aren't offered.

Fishing

Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) disclosed in a regulatory filing that Mather, Pixar's former chief financial officer, has been told that the Securities and Exchange Commission's Los Angeles office plans to recommend that the agency take civil action against her.

The SEC is alleging violations of federal securities laws relating to options transactions made while Pixar was an independent company. Pixar now is owned by Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS).

Disney last year said an inquiry it conducted found that backdating had occurred prior to its acquisition of the company. It said no one now associated with Disney had engaged in intentional misconduct.

At the time, most of the Pixar backdating focus was on Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, who is the former chief executive officer of Pixar and is on Disney's board.

Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, the Cheetah Girls and the ubiquitous Sprouse brothers from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody are among Disney stars continental and international who will compete this week with winnings going to charity.

Tuesday and Thursday production will be free and open to the public, albeit in a very limited way. Disney officials told the Orlando Sentinel, “We can’t have regular kids on the field.” That is due in part to the fact that the games aren’t really a sporting event, it’s more like a series of reality TV challenges. Footage shot this week will culminate in five half-hour shows that debut in late July on the Disney Channel.

This year’s challenges will have the performers building a racing chariot. They’ll get to try their luck as pieces on a giant foosball table. There is also a thinking man’s game of matching fellow stars with their baby pictures. (The Sprouse brothers should be an easy one.) A Disney flak says the challenges this year will be bigger to hopefully come across better on TV.

The talent will play for charities like the Boys & Girls Club, UNICEF, Make-A-Wish and Starlight Starbright.

The Orlando Sentinel also reports that the series will include a concert, a show to be shot this Saturday. Tickets for that show featuring Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, the Cheetah Girls, Demi Lovato and Jordan Pruitt have already been handed out.

Cyrus is still slated to take part in the games and perform despite the embarrassing photo spread circulating the Internet featuring a seemingly topless Cyrus wrapped in a silky sheet. Cyrus and her father, singer Billy Ray Cyrus, agreed to the photo spread with famed photographer Annie Liebovitz as part of a Vanity Fair interview for the June edition of that magazine. After seeing the questionable photos and hearing some of the backlash from fans Miley apologized through a publicist Sunday. Disney’s response was that their 15-year-old star was “manipulated” so that Vanity Fair can sell magazines.

Disney may be banking on the idea that if fans see Miley Cyrus in a more natural setting like the wholesome Disney Channel Games, it may go a long way toward repairing the Hannah Montana star’s slightly tarnished image.

He or she may be considering getting a new cape for the penguin, or redesigning its igloo with penguin furniture, before playing one of the many games in the world, Aquagrabber, which involves flying over the skyline collecting pieces of treasure from shipwrecks.

Or the child could take the penguin's pet - a small, brightly colored creature with no legs known as a 'puffle' - for a walk with its friends.

The features of Club Penguin, one of the most successful virtual worlds aimed specifically at children, may defy logic - and gravity - but they represent the new frontier of children's entertainment, where the whimsy and colour of traditional kids TV blends with computer game-style tasks, and the networking power of the internet.

Some 750,000 British children aged between 6 and 14 are estimated to inhabit Club Penguin, the brainchild of two Canadian entrepreneurs who as parents became frustrated with the lack of the options for kids who wanted to play computer games but also meet friends online.

Lane Merrifield and his colleague Lance Priebe, both Canadian, were looking for sites that their six-year-old children may be able to join, but found that there was nothing in between the likes of MySpace and Facebook - which were "aimed at grown-ups", and web-based computer games, which catered for only one person at a time.

The boss at the web production company where they worked agreed that the idea of a social networking for kids was worth developing. They chose the penguin motif - for no particular reason, apparently, though according to one version of events it was because penguins were easier to animate than humans - and in 2005, the first incarnation of Club Penguin went live.

Since then the world, which is free to join, has grown exponentially. The Club Penguin site is now supported by 200 mostly Canada and US-based employees, and in August last year it became the latest 'new media' company to be snapped up by an old one when it was bought by Disney in deal that could be worth as much as $700 million.

Mr Merrifield, 29, who is estimated to have netted about $115 million from the sale, says that he said he had "great cynicism" heading into the talks with Disney, but that despite the large sum paid, Disney is not applying pressure to increase subscriber numbers, and he and his co-founders are free to develop the site as they have been.

"The way we see it, we'd come to a crossroads where what we wanted to do creatively was outpacing our infrastructure. We could either have taken a couple of years to build it out, or find a company with that infrastructure (which was Disney). We saw it like we were sending our kid off to college."

The site - which also offers a premium service for £3.95 a month - is presently focused on adding localized features designed to appeal to users in specific countries. Hence a trip to the UK to open a new Brighton office, which will house 11 staff - mostly 'community support' workers who answer questions posed 'in game' by the kids, and a writer who will adapt some of the game's terms.

British kids will soon be able to have their penguins snack on 'tea and scones' - instead of coffee and croissants, wear wellies, and enjoy festivities on Guy Fawkes Night.

Catering for local sensibilities is just one of the many challenges of a rapid global expansion, however, which Mr. Merrifield admits is giving the team "many sleepless nights." One of the most innovative aspects of the site is its subscription-based business model, which has enabled it to remain completely free of advertising.

The monthly fee entitles the subscriber to a range of benefits - including different types of outfits and a greater range of igloo furniture - that other penguins can't have, but in a neat twist, the fee alone doesn't translate to ownership. The subscriber still has to perform the tasks which earn them coins. Once the coins are earned, they are worth more than they are to non-subscribers.

This, Mr Merrifield says, distinguishes the site from other virtual worlds aimed at kids which operate on the so-called 'micro-payment model', where all manner of virtual goods such as clothing can be bought for small fee each, usually less than $1.

"We didn't want to create a system where the rich kids get the cool things and the poor kids don't," he says.

The site prides itself on its learning features - part of a drive to align it with parents' interests as much as with those of kids. Reading a book in Club Penguin, for instance, is interactive: kids help determine the plot of the book as they go along in an exercise that is part choose-your-own-adventure novel, part cartoon channel, and part typing lesson.

Safety is also a priority. A range of filtering controls that prevent the exchange of any information of a personal nature - names, addresses, school names, phone numbers - mean that so far the site has not to report any "incident". The management has been invited to speak at an FBI convention on child safety every year since it was set up.

The site faces strong competition from a range of free sites. Stardoll.com, a fashion-focused site aimed at young girls, has 450,000 UK users, according to Nielsen Online, and Habbo Hotel, which advertises itself as a 'hang out for teens', has 390,000.

The same has been true for movies. I have owned Blade Runner now in four different formats: VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and now Blu-ray Disc (I skipped the HD-DVD version). Well, Disney and Buena Vista feel our pain and are putting their money where their mouth is in the form of ten dollar cash rebates for those who buy the Blu-ray Disc version of a Disney or Buena Vista film they already own on DVD.

If you want to take advantage of this offer you'll need to maul your DVD and Blu-ray Disc cases, cutting out the UPC codes from the back of the cases and mailing these in with the rebate form included in the Blu-ray package, but hey, as Geddy Lee said to Bob and Doug MacKenzie in Take Off, "Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?"

The promotion currently includes a select number of titles but this list has been expanded since January when it was first introduced. And it does help take the edge off when investing in a new format. Cheers to Disney and Buena Vista for helping to pave the path to a high definition future. I wish more studios would do the same.

Current titles included in the ten dollar rebate promotion include:

But for a group of Port Charlotte High School students, the pyro show continued into the parking lot when one of the buses they rented caught fire early this morning.

Students who were on the trip said they were told the engine overheated while the bus idled in the parking lot of Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, waiting for students to head back to Port Charlotte.

Some students felt heat from a fire that started on the outside of the bus and then smelled smoke, launching a mass evacuation of about 40 students. The teenagers scrambled out of emergency exits, and a few hurt their ankles or wrists in the process. No one was seriously injured.

“I was just worried about trying to get off the bus,” said 18-year-old Ashley Young.
Port Charlotte High School staff member Sonia Tirb said the fire started small but ultimately “engulfed the back of the bus.”

Tirb said the chaperones were impressed that students acted so maturely and promptly helped each other get out of the bus, including one student who refused to leave until all his classmates were safe.

“The kids on the bus did an absolutely wonderful job,” Tirb said. “We’re just really proud how they handled themselves.”

The 3,195-square-foot Disney’s Character Warehouse carries men’s, women’s and children’s apparel, housewares, toys, jewelry and timepieces, according to a news release.

She is the idol of countless American girls, but experts warn Cyrus, star of "Hannah Montana" could be headed for a bad-girl breakdown along the lines of fallen pop singer Britney Spears and child-star turned substance-abuser Lindsay Lohan.

Disney Book Group made waves with the revelation that Cyrus' memoir would be published in spring 2009, with People magazine setting the windfall for the rising teen sensation's first book at around one billion dollars.

The book is to tell the story of how the teenager shot to fame and yet has managed to keep her feet on the ground with the support of her family, which Cyrus said she hopes will "inspire kids around the world to live their dreams."

At the root of Miley-mania is Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" series, the story of an American teenager, Miley Stewart, who leads a normal life by day and is a pop star by night. It has become one of Disney's most effective marketing campaigns ever.

Millions of viewers age six to 14 watch the show each week, in which the on-screen father of Miley Stewart and her alter ego Hannah Montana is her real life father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus previously best known for singing "Achy Breaky Heart."

"This phenomenon really plays into the 'anybody can be a star' (idea). Hannah Montana provides the illusion of a reality show. She's an everyday