Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010 – BCAS Annual Meeting, 6:00pm at the Cedar Gap Farms Birdhouse!  This is a brown bag event. BCAS will provide beverages.  Come earlier if you wish to walk the trails or bird.

Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010 – Field Trip to Oakwood Trails.  Meet at 7:30 AM.  Oakwood Trails is on east side of Abilene State Living Center campus.

Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010 – BCAS Board Meeting at Mezamiz Coffee Shop – 7:00 PM.  Come earlier if you want to eat.

Thursday, September 2, 2010 – BCAS Annual Meeting and election of officers.  More information to follow at later date.

Saturday May 29, 2010 – Field Trip to Dyess Air Force Base. Meet at 7:00am at the Dyess Visitors Center. Carpool if possible and RSVP with Dan if you plan to go on this trip. Email – bigcountryaudubon@live.com or call the hotline by May 20^th, so that vans can be provided on base. Bring water and bug spray. We should see some very good birds out there.

Saturday June 19, 2010 – Field trip to Waste Water Treatment Plant. We will leave from Towne Crier at 7:30 am. Come earlier if you want to buy breakfast. We will carpool. Bring water and bug spray. Target birds: Dickcissel and Black-neck Stilt.

Saturday July 17, 2010 – Field trip to Abilene State Park including Abilene Lake–Meet at Laura’s Blind at 8:00 am; bird, then come back to the blind to work awhile. Contact a friend to car pool from Abilene if you wish. Bring water and bug spray.

This is a Lesser Prairie Chicken, it may look similar to it.   If you see them, please call our hotline and/or notify Abilene SP officials.

An adult Great Kiskadee has a stout black bill. The head is black with a strong white stripe above the eye and with a white chin, and with a concealed yellow crown stripe. The bird “reveals” this yellow crown stripe to look like a crest when challenging or when courting. The wings, back and tail are brown with strong rufous fringes. Its flashy bright yellow belly and shrill, exuberant call (kis-ter-DEE) along with the head and body colors make the Great Kiskadee easy to identify.

The nest, built by both sexes, usually in a tree or on a telephone pole, is a shaggy ball of twigs with a carefully constructed smooth round side entrance and smooth nest cup. The typical clutch is two to three cream eggs lightly blotched with reddish brown. They are incubated by the female. Both parents feed the babies.

They eat insects caught in flight, small rodents, fruit and berries, dog food, and they fish for and eat fish. from Wikipedia–Great Kiskadee

Abilene Sightings On March 16, 2010, a Great Kiskadee was sighted on Cedar Creek in Will Hair Park in northeast Abilene. This species normally breeds and lives in the far south Rio Grande Valley, Mexico, and points south. One individual (or individuals) seems to prefer the Cedar Creek area of Abilene. Several questions remain unanswered. Is this the same bird that was here several times in the past including in September and December of 2006; in April of 2008 and 2009, and again this year on March 16? Or, are there different birds? Or, does the bird reside here all year? We have only seen one bird at a time. We have heard it call numerous times. We need your help to answer these questions. This bird is easy to I.D. Please report any sightings with date, location, (picture if possible), your name and phone number to bigcountryaudubon@live.com or call a BCAS member. We will appreciate your help in answering these questions. Thanks. Katharine Hampton

ALERT: Be on the lookout for the TRUE sign that spring is here– a sighting of The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. How exciting that will be!

• Fri & Sat, April 9- 10, 2010 – Field trip to Ft. Hood. This will be an overnight trip, please RSVP by April 5th in order to reserve a room and know how many HIGH CLEARANCE vehicles will be needed. If you have a high clearance vehicle (4X4 is good but not required) and will be able bring it please RSVP with that info. We will expect to depart by 5pm on the 9th. Look forward to this good trip! Target birds will be the Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Please call the hotline too.

• Thursday, April 15, 2010 – Audubon Lecture Series – Dr. Tom Lee, Biology Professor at ACU will give a presentation at 6pm at the Grace Museum as the Audubon Exhibit continues.

• Thursday, May 6, 2010 – Our annual Spring Fling will be at the Cedar Gap Farms Birdhouse at 6:30pm. Come earlier if you wish to bird. This will be a potluck, so sign-up for a couple dishes at the April 1st meeting. BCAS will provide brisket. Target bird will be the Painted Bunting.

The subject of our meeting will be, the importance of Abilene State Park to the surrounding communities.  It will be presented by a member of the park staff.

Our field trip to Dyess tomorrow is cancelled due to expected weather conditions.  We will try to reshedule.

Join the Great Backyard Bird Count

February 12-15, 2010

New York, NY and Ithaca, NY—Bird watchers coast to coast are invited to take part in the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Friday, February 12, through Monday, February 15, 2010.  Participants in the free event will join tens of thousands of volunteers counting birds in their own backyards, local parks or wildlife refuges.

Each checklist submitted by these “citizen scientists” helps researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society learn more about how the birds are doing—and how to protect them. Last year, participants turned in more than 93,600 checklists online, creating the continent’s largest instantaneous snapshot of bird populations ever recorded.

“Taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count is a great way to get outside with family and friends, have fun, and help birds—all at the same time,” said Audubon Education Vice President, Judy Braus. “Even if you can only identify a few species you can provide important information that enables scientists to learn more about how the environment is changing and how that affects our conservation priorities.”

Anyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, from novice bird watchers to experts. Participants count birds for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of the event and report their sightings online at www.birdcount.org. One 2009 participant said, “Thank you for the opportunity to participate in citizen science. I have had my eyes opened to a whole new interest and I love it!”

“The GBBC is a perfect first step towards the sort of intensive monitoring needed to discover how birds are responding to environmental change,” said Janis Dickinson, the director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab. “Winter is such a vulnerable period for birds, so winter bird distributions are likely to be very sensitive to change. There is only one way—citizen science—to gather data on private lands where people live and GBBC has been doing this across the continent for many years. GBBC has enormous potential both as an early warning system and in capturing and engaging people in more intensive sampling of birds across the landscape.”

Bird populations are always shifting and changing. For example, 2009 GBBC data highlighted a huge southern invasion of Pine Siskins across much of the eastern United States. Participants counted 279,469 Pine Siskins on 18,528 checklists, as compared to the previous high of 38,977 birds on 4,069 checklists in 2005. Failure of seed crops farther north caused the siskins to move south to find their favorite food.

On the www.birdcount.org website, participants can explore real-time maps and charts that show what others are reporting during the count. The site has tips to help identify birds and special materials for educators. Participants may also enter the GBBC photo contest by uploading images taken during the count. Many images will be featured in the GBBC website’s photo gallery. All participants are entered in a drawing for prizes that include bird feeders, binoculars, books, CDs, and many other great birding products.

For more information about the GBBC, visit the website at www.birdcount.org. Or contact the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at (800) 843-2473 or (outside the U.S., call (607) 254-2473) or gbbc@cornell.edu, or Audubon at citizenscience@audubon.org or 202-861-2242 ext 3050.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is made possible, in part, by generous support from Wild Birds Unlimited.

Editors: Please go the GBBC News Room for high-resolution images, top-10 lists, FAQS, and results of the 2009 count. To interview a participant in your area, please get in touch with one of the media contacts listed below.

Contacts:

• Pat Leonard, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, (607) 254-2137, pel27@cornell.edu

• Delta Willis, Audubon, (212) 979-3197, dwillis@audubon.org

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a nonprofit membership institution interpreting and conserving the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Visit the Cornell Lab’s website at www.birds.cornell.edu.

Audubon is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them. Our national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engage millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in conservation. www.audubon.org

Jan. 16 – Bera Fay

Jan. 23 – Dan

Jan 30 – The Wiggins

Feb. 6 – Kathy & Esta

Feb. 13 – Larry

Feb. 20 – Dan

Feb. 27 – Larry

Mar. 6 – Dan

These are all board members who have volunteered to perform this duty along with Harry who takes on the duties during the week.  Board members are going to begin inviting the general membership to accompany them in the performance of these duties.  Please try to help if you can.