cheyenne – high plains audubon society flyer · 10/16/2016 · flyer cheyenne – high plains...
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Flyer Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society Chartered by the National Audubon Society since 1974
Serving southeastern Wyoming Audubon members
Officers and Committee Chairs
President—vacant
Dennis Saville, Vice president—
307-632-1602, [email protected]
Donna Kassel, Secretary—307-634-6481 Chuck Seniawski, Treasurer, Webmaster—307-638-6519, [email protected]
Jack Palma, Audubon Rockies liaison—
Greg Johnson, Bird Compiler—
307-634-1056, [email protected]
Jan McKee, Conservation
Belinda Moench, Education
Elizabeth Thums, Field Trip, Historian—
307-649-2477
Mark Gorges, Newsletter, Habitat Hero pro-
gram—307-634-0463, [email protected]
Art Anderson, Important Bird Areas—
307-638-1286
Wanda Manley, Member at Large
Susan Parkins, Membership
Barb Gorges, Programs—
307-634-0463, [email protected]
The CHPAS Flyer is published monthly as a benefit of chapter membership. Submissions are welcome. The current issue is available
online at http://home.lonetree.com/audubon.
Please become a CHPAS member—Send $12 and your name and mailing address to the chapter. Include your e-mail address to get your newsletter digitally to save re-sources and see the photos in color. All chap-ter memberships expire Sept. 1.
Cheyenne-High Plains Audubon Soc.
P.O. Box 2502
Cheyenne, WY 82003-2502
http://home.lonetree.com/audubon
If you would like to join the Nation-al Audubon Society, send $20 to NAS, 225 Varick Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10014, Attn: Chance Mueleck. Add the code C4ZZ53OZ and the $20 will be returned to CHPAS.
Wyobirds e-list - Subscribe, post and/or read interesting sightings: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-HOME.exe?A0=WYOBIRDS.
June 2016
Jun. 25—Field Trip to Belinda and Don Moench’s cabin near Fox Park. 8 a.m. We will leave from the Lions Park parking lot between the Old Community House and Children's Village. This is an all day trip, including bird watching, potluck picnic and fishing. —-We will be looking for hummingbird species, waterfowl and assorted forest birds. —-Belinda and Don will provide the hamburgers. We are each asked to bring a salad or desert to share with everyone. —-Fishing will be in the lake on their property. Bring your own gear and your fishing license. —-Bring a folding chair or camp stool to sit on for the pot-luck. We will drive to Laramie and then on to Fox Park, about an hour and a half. We plan to rendezvous at the Fox Park junction on WY 230, in the parking area on the south side of the road. You must register for this trip so that our hosts will have enough supplies for the potluck and so that we can let you know if it is canceled for any reason. Please call Mark and Barb at 307-634-0463; if you leave a message, give us your name, number of people coming and your phone num-ber. We plan to be back to Cheyenne by 5 p.m., but you can leave whenever you need to. Jun. 24—Cheyenne Country Club Survey 8 a.m. Contact
Chuck if you wish to take part or be on his email notice list: 638-6519,
Jul. 23/24—Field Trip to Garden
of the Gods.
We would drive to Colorado
Springs on Saturday and rendezvous at the
Garden of the Gods visitors center at 1 p.m.
There are a number of birding hot spots in
the area where we can spend the afternoon.
The next morning we would join a regular
nature walk at the Garden of the Gods and
continue to search for birds in the rest of
the park. Please call Barb and Mark at 307-
634-0463 if you are interested in this trip. Garden of the Gods photo by Barb Gorges
As we move toward summer, we need to start planning chapter activities for the coming year. To help with that process, we need some help from chapter members. If you would like to be on the chapter board or have
ideas for the new year, please call Dennis Saville at 307-632-1602 or email him at [email protected]. We can always use help on any of the committees listed on the first page.
Country Club Survey Results—May 3rd by Chuck Seniawski
Chapter Officers and Committees
Love this Wyoming weather -- not! A bit raw today, with cloudy skies, 46 degrees and a breeze near 20 mph. Nevertheless, a nice sampling of species. Jerry Johnson, Mark Gorges, Art Anderson, Richard Gil-bert and Chuck Seniawski. 36 species (+1 other taxa) Canada Goose 5 Gadwall 2 Mallard 14 Blue-winged Teal 2 Blue-winged/Cinnamon Teal 1 hybrid Northern Shoveler 1 Pied-billed Grebe 1 Black-crowned Night-Heron 2
Osprey 2 Swainson's Hawk 1 American Coot 3 Killdeer 1 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 4 Red-headed Woodpecker 1 rare for this area, but not unknown Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) 4 American Kestrel 1 Western Wood-Pewee 6 Western Kingbird 1 Black-billed Magpie 1 American Crow 9 Northern Rough-winged Swallow 2 Tree Swallow 2 Barn Swallow 3
Mountain Chickadee 1 Swainson's Thrush 3 American Robin 2 Gray Catbird 1 European Starling 4 Common Yellowthroat 1 Yellow Warbler 3 Clay-colored Sparrow 2 Red-winged Blackbird 13 Western Meadowlark 1 Yellow-headed Blackbird 11 Common Grackle 6 Great-tailed Grackle 6 House Sparrow 4
A beautiful day and quite a bit of activity at the Country Club today. The White-faced Ibis were new for this loca-tion. Jerry Johnson, Mark Gorges, Art An-derson and Chuck Seniawski. 50 degrees. Sunny. No snow on ground. Winds calm. 35 species Canada Goose 7 Gadwall 20 Mallard 11 Blue-winged Teal 10 Green-winged Teal 4 Redhead 2 Ring-necked Duck 30 Flock of males and females Ruddy Duck 3 Pied-billed Grebe 3 Black-crowned Night-Heron 1 White-faced Ibis 19 Turkey Vulture 6
Osprey 2 Red-tailed Hawk 1 Swainson's Hawk (dark morph) American Coot 9 Spotted Sandpiper 4 Solitary Sandpiper 4 Eurasian Collared-Dove 2
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) 8 Black-billed Magpie 4 American Crow 5 Barn Swallow 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch 2 Swainson's Thrush 2 American Robin 6
European Starling 10 Yellow-rumped Warbler 32 A mix of Myrtle and Audubon's, mostly males Chipping Sparrow 1 Lark Sparrow 2 Lincoln's Sparrow 1 Red-winged Blackbird 41 Yellow-headed Blackbird 5 Great-tailed Grackle 11 House Sparrow 1
Country Club Survey Results—May 27th by Chuck Seniawski
The 2016 State of North America’s Birds (SONAB) report is based on a conservation status assessment of 1,154 na-tive bird species that breed in the continental U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as oceanic birds that regularly occur in waters off these three countries. Every bird species was assessed throughout its range and annual cycle. This assessment employs biological criteria to evaluate distinct components of vulnerability, includ-ing population size, distribution, threats and population trend. The report can be found at http://www.stateofthebirds.org/2016/. Although Partners in Flight originally applied this as-sessment to all landbirds in the U.S. and Canada (Rich et al.
2004), it was recently expanded to include all bird species occur-ring in Mexico (Berlanga et al. 2010). For this report, the State of North America’s Birds science team applied identical methods to assess all North American taxa, seeking expert review for scores applied to shorebirds, waterbirds, seabirds, and waterfowl. All assessment scores, and associated information on every species, is housed in the Avian Conservation Assessment Database. The Resources section of this site includes a species assessment sum-mary (http://www.stateofthebirds.org/2016/resources/species-assessments/) used in this report as well as a downloadable ver-sion of the entire data table.
State of North America's Birds 2016
Solitary Sandpiper—photo by Mark Gorges
The morning started with fog and wet grass, but it wasn’t raining. Nine people met in Lions Park at 6 a.m. Another 3 people joined us later at the Hereford Ranch where we were met by Slone Hales and one of his grandsons. It remained cloudy and misty most of the day. Seven other people birded independently. The number of species was down a bit from last year. Highlights of the day included Broad-winged Hawks, Red-necked Phalaropes and an Eastern Bluebird. Here are the codes for the table below: P-Lions Park, WHR-Wyoming Herford Ranch, HP-High Plains Grasslands Research Station, WA-Warren Air Force Base, O-other.
Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count, May 14, 2016, Compiled by Greg Johnson
107 species total LP WHR HP WA O
Canada Goose X X X X X
Gadwall X X X X
American Wigeon X
Mallard X X X X X
Blue-winged Teal X X
Cinnamon Teal X
Northern Shoveler X
Northern Pintail X
Green-winged Teal X
Redhead X
Ring-necked Duck X
Lesser Scaup X
Bufflehead X
Common Merganser X
Ruddy Duck X
Pied-billed Grebe X
Eared Grebe X
Western Grebe X X
Clark's Grebe X
Double-crested Cormorant X
American White Pelican X X X X
Great Blue Heron X X
Black-crowned Night-Heron X X X X
White-faced Ibis X
Turkey Vulture X
Osprey X
Cooper's Hawk X X
Broad-winged Hawk X X
Swainson's Hawk X X X
Red-tailed Hawk X X
American Coot X X X
American Avocet X
Killdeer X
Spotted Sandpiper X X X X X
Willet X
Wilson's Snipe X X
Wilson's Phalarope X
Red-necked Phalarope X
Bonaparte's Gull X
Franklin’s Gull X X
Ring-billed Gull X
Forster's Tern X
Rock Pigeon X
Birders in the group (13):
Barb & Mark Gorges
Lisa & John Kirkpatrick
Don Edington
Jerry Johnson (Laramie)
Art Anderson
Dennis & Alice Flyr (Cody)
Chuck Tyler
Jack Mills (Laramie)
Greg Johnson
Judy Sears
Additional birders (7):
Don & Belinda Moench
Donna Kassel
Jan Backstrom
Susan Parkins
Shelagh Needham Ward
Julie Brantley
Green-tailed Towhee X
Chipping Sparrow X X X X X
Clay-colored Sparrow X
Vesper Sparrow X
Lark Sparrow X X X X
Lark Bunting X X X X
Song Sparrow X
Lincoln’s Sparrow X
White-crowned Sparrow X X X
Western Tanager X X
Rose-breasted Grosbeak X
Black-headed Grosbeak X X
Red-winged Blackbird X X X X X
Western Meadowlark X X X X X
Yellow-headed Blackbird X X X
Common Grackle X X X X
Great-tailed Grackle X X
Brown-headed Cowbird X
Bullock's Oriole X
House Finch X X X
Pine Siskin X X X
Lesser Goldfinch X
American Goldfinch X X X X
House Sparrow X X X X
Eurasian Collared-Dove X X X
Mourning Dove X X X X X
Belted Kingfisher X X
Downy Woodpecker X X
Northern Flicker X X X X X
American Kestrel X
Prairie Falcon X
Western Wood-Pewee X
Least Flycatcher X
Western Kingbird X
Eastern Kingbird X
Loggerhead Shrike X
Blue Jay X X
Black-billed Magpie X X
American Crow X X X X X
Common Raven X
Tree Swallow X X
N. Rough-winged Swallow X
Bank Swallow X
Cliff Swallow X X
Barn Swallow X X X
Mountain Chickadee X
Red-breasted Nuthatch X
House Wren X
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher X
Ruby-crowned Kinglet X X
Eastern Bluebird X
Mountain Bluebird X
Veery X
Swainson's Thrush X X X X
Hermit Thrush X
American Robin X X X X X
Brown Thrasher X
European Starling X X X X
Black-and-white Warbler X
Orange-crowned Warbler X X
Yellow Warbler X X X X
Blackpoll Warbler X
Palm Warbler X
Yellow-rumped Warbler X X X X X
Big Day Bird Count on the Hereford Ranch—photo by Mark Gorges
Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society
P.O. Box 2502
Cheyenne, WY 82003
Bird count day gives us big picture Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Opinion section May 22, 2016
By Barb Gorges May Hanesworth was ahead of her time. An active Cheyenne birder as early as the 1940s, she made sure the results of the local spring bird counts were published every year in the Chey-enne paper. She recruited me in the 1990s to type the lists for her. She felt that someday there would be a place for that data and she was right. A few years ago, members of the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Socie-ty collected and uploaded that data to eBird.org, a global database for bird ob-servations. The oldest record we found was for 1956. We refer to the count we make at the height of spring migration as the Big Day Bird Count. Elsewhere in the world, competitive birders will, as a small team or solo, do a big day to see how many species they can find in a specified area. But the idea of a group of unlimited size like ours going out and scouring an area is unusual, though closer to what the originator, Lynds Jones, an Oberlin Col-lege ornithology professor, had in mind back in 1895. Now eBird.org has started a new tradition as of last year, the Global Big Day. This year it was scheduled for May 14, the same day as ours. Results show 15,953 people around the world saw 6,263 bird species*. For our local count, 20 people looked for birds around Chey-enne, and 107 species were counted. Finding our favorite birds in the
company of friends is a good incentive for taking part, but there is the science too. Back in the spring of 1956, May saw 85 species. And when Mark and I started in the 1990s, 150 seemed to be the norm—perhaps because Cheyenne had more trees by then. However, the last 10 years, the average is lower, 118. Maybe we aren’t as sharp as earlier birders. Or we are missing the peak of migration. Or we have lost prime habitat for migrating birds as the sur-rounding prairie gets built over and el-derly trees are removed in town. Or it’s caused by deteriorating habitat in south-ern wintering grounds or northern breed-ing grounds. But imagine where we would be without the Migratory Bird Treaty. This year marks the 100th anni-versary of the first agreement, in 1916, between the U.S. and Great Britain (signing for Canada), followed by other agreements and updates. In summary: “It is illegal to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, offer for sale, purchase or barter any migratory bird, or parts, nests or eggs.” Even migrating songbirds, like our Wyoming state bird, the western meadowlark, are protected. But who would want to hurt a meadowlark? Look at the Mediterranean fly-way. Birdlife International reports 25 million birds of all kinds along it are shot or trapped every year for fun, food and
the cage bird trade. Perpetrators think the supply of birds is endless. But we can point to the millions of passenger pi-geons in North America prior to the death in 1914 of the last one, to show what can happen. The city of Eliat, Israel, is the funnel between Africa and Europe/Asia on the Mediterranean flyway, and to bring attention to the slaughter, the annu-al Champions of the Flyway bird race is based there. A big day event, this year it attracted 40 teams, Israeli and interna-tional, which counted a combined total of 243 species during 24 hours. This year, funds raised by the teams are going to Greece, to support education and enforcement—killing mi-gratory birds is already illegal. Some of the worst-hit areas are in forests above beaches popular with tourists. Attracting birdwatching tourists could pay better than killing and trapping birds, a kind of change that has been beneficial else-where. Many factors affect how many birds we see in Cheyenne on our big day, but we do have control over one aspect: habitat. If you live in the city, plant more trees and shrubs in appropriate places. If you live on acreage, protect the prairie and its ground-nesting grassland birds. And then join us on future Cheyenne Big Day Bird Counts and contribute to the global big picture of birds. *43,848 checklists were submit-ted from145 countries.