Welcome to the Huachuca Audubon Society
The Huachuca Audubon Society (HAS) offers monthly meetings in the form of
lectures or slide shows on birding and natural history
subjects. Meetings take place in Sierra Vista, usually on the third
Tuesday of the month, September through May. Frequent birding trips to
a variety of birding hotspots are offered year round.
Whether in the area for a few days or newly relocated here, you are
invited to join us in any activity offered.
Join our Trogon News e-mail list for chapter announcements: email our
webmaster.
Breaking News!
New tours to Belize and Panama offerred by
Mark Pretti Nature Tours
support Huachuca Audubon!
See details below.
Join us May 25 in Tucson for Protecting Our Rivers Workshop with
Audubon's Western Rivers Action Network! See details below.
Be a volunteer advocate for Audubon's Western Rivers Action Network
(WRAN)!
Email
riosalado@audubon.org
or Sarah Porter at
sporter@audubon.org to find out how to join.
Learn more...
Interested in the Southwest Wings Festival? Consider joining the Board!
If you would like more information, please contact Gordon Lewis via email to
ranchogulag@gmail.com
Trying to find reports of rare birds in Arizona?
Subscribe to AZ/NM Birds!
Want to hear about rare birds elsewhere in the ABA area?
Read
the ABA Rare Bird Alert on Facebook!
Schedule of Events for May 2013
[E-mail
us
about coming events & corrections]
Local Programs and Events
May 4th, Saturday, all day. FSPR hosts the
Spring Festival/Int'l Migratory Bird Day
at San Pedro House.
May 11th, Saturday, 5pm. Potluck/Presentation at A-W Research Ranch on
Field Guides of the National Parks in Arizona
by Steve Buckley, Botanist, National Park Service.
May 21st, Tuesday, 7pm. HAS Monthly Program: Dwight and Chris Long on
Voyage to South Georgia.
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May 21st, Tuesday, 7pm. HAS Monthly Program: Dwight and Chris Long on
Voyage to South Georgia.
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Voyage to South Georgia
The regular monthly Huachuca Audubon meeting will be on Tuesday
evening, May 21. Check out the
flyer.
Dwight and Chris Long will present a slide show of their fourteen day voyage
aboard the expedition ship Ushuaia to South Georgia Island. They spent eight
days at South Georgia, with a full day at St. Andrew’s Bay and another full
day at
Salisbury Plain. These two locations comprise South Georgia’s largest and
second
largest king penguin colonies with estimates that St. Andrew’s Bay contains
150,000 nesting king penguin pairs. The Longs visited South Georgia in October
of 2012, in what is considered early spring, before the beaches became clogged
with aggressive elephant seals and earlier than the summer snow melt. While
concentrating on king penguins, the program includes images of other South
Georgia wildlife, scenic landscapes, and the abandoned whaling stations at
Stromness Bay and Grytviken, where Shackleton was buried.
The Huachuca Audubon Society monthly program
will be held on Tuesday, May 21st, 7:00 pm at Cochise College in
Room 702 in Bulding 700, Community Outreach
at Cochise College, 901 North Colombo Avenue in Sierra Vista. See the
street map
for the location of the campus in Sierra Vista and the
campus map for the location of the room.
May 25th, Saturday, 8:30am - 3:30pm. Join us for
Protecting Our Rivers Workshop with Audubon's WRAN
It takes place in Tucson at the Karsten Turfgrass Research Facility –
Conference Center – U of A, 2101 E. Roger Rd.
Please join Audubon Arizona, Tucson Audubon and U of A's Water Resources
Research Center (WRRC) at a workshop to discuss Audubon's new multi-state
effort to save western rivers including the San Pedro River, namely
the Western Rivers Action Network (WRAN).
See the flyer
for more info. Sign up by sending e-mail to
LLSARAH@MSN.COM.
Field Trips
May 8th, Wednesday, 7am. 2nd Wednesday FSPR Bird Walk.
Meet at San Pedro House (SPH).
May 25th, Saturday, 7am. FSPR Bird Walk. Meet at San Pedro House (SPH).
Note: due to the particularly high price of gas, car pool passengers
are expected to provide adequate compensation to their drivers, about
8 cents per mile.
Weekly Events
Every Sunday at 7am Apr-Sep (then 8am Oct-Mar),
Bird Walk at Sierra Vista EOP.
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Every Sunday at 7am Apr-Sep (then 8am Oct-Mar),
Bird Walk at Sierra Vista EOP.
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The Sunday bird walks at the Sierra Vista EOP (Environmental Operations Park)
sponsored by Huachuca Audubon Society, Friends
of the San Pedro River, and the Southeast Arizona Birding Observatory
start at 7 AM. Please come early as tours
are limited to 20 participants with two docents.
Concluded for the season: Monday Bird walks on the San Pedro River.
Looking Ahead
June 1, Saturday. Annual Elegant Trogon Survey,
coordinated by the USFS and
Rick Taylor.
June 2--Chiricahuas, June 8--Santa Ritas,
June 9--Patagonia & Atascosa Mountains.
June 8, Saturday. Science on the Sonoita Plain at A-W Research Ranch.
June 13, Thursday, 1:30-4:30pm. Classroom session for
Yellow-billed Cuckoo Survey Training at Red Rock Ranger Station
near Sedona. Please contact Matt Johnson at
matthew.johnson@nau.edu.
June 14, Friday, 6-10am. Field session for
Yellow-billed Cuckoo Survey Training at Red Rock Ranger Station
near Sedona. Please contact Matt Johnson at
matthew.johnson@nau.edu.
June.
Birding expedition
to inventory birds of the Sierra San Luis of Northern Mexico.
Join Sky Island Alliance,
the Arizona Coordinated Bird Monitoring Program, and Tucson Audubon Society
for an adventure on Rancho Pan Duro southeast of Douglas/Agua Prieta.
Jul 12-15. Audubon Convention 2013 at Skamania Lodge, Stevenson, WA.
Learn more...
For additional nearby field trips and programs, check out the
Friends of San Pedro River and
Friends of Sonoita Creek.
Interested in butterflies? Check out the
Southeast Arizona Butterfly Association.
International Bird Tours
Mark Pretti Nature Tours
Belize: Jewel of the Caribbean, February 1 - 11, 2014
With its largely undisturbed tropical forests, abundance of rivers,
tremendous diversity of flora and fauna, outstanding birding, and rich
human history, Belize is one of the world’s finest natural
destinations. Within the borders of this sparsely populated Central
American country lie a great variety of habitats, including mangroves,
beaches, rivers, lagoons, savanna, and broadleaf tropical forest.
From some of Belize's finest accommodations – Birds Eye View,
Lamanai,
Pook’s Hill, and
Hidden Valley Inn,
- we'll visit Mayan ruins, see
spectacular waterfalls, enjoy a night safari boat ride and a sunset
lagoon trip, and marvel at the wildlife just outside our doors. While
seeing and learning about some of Belize's 570+ species of birds –
including toucans, woodcreepers, tanagers, antbirds, hummingbirds,
raptors, waders, and more – we’ll likely encounter howler monkeys,
iguanas, crocodiles, dazzling butterflies, and other tropical treats.
The cost will be about $3300 per person, double occupancy, all
inclusive from Belize City, and including a $100 donation to the
Huachuca Audubon Society.
Panama: The Land Between the Seas, February 21 - March 3, 2014
In addition to being a physical and ecological link between North and
South America, Panama is biogeographically rich, with cool cloud
forest, tropical deciduous forest, lowland rainforest, extensive
coastline, and many rivers and streams, all of which contribute to a
tremendous diversity of flora and fauna. From our excellent
accommodations –
Gamboa Rainforest Resort,
and the
Canopy Lodge,
– we’ll
explore some of these habitats and their rich wildlife. We visit
Metropolitan Nature Park and the Panama Canal’s Miraflores Locks where
we'll have a short tour of the canal and watch the locks in action.
We spend four nights at Gamboa from where we visit the nearby Panama
Rainforest Discovery Center and it's 100-foot tall canopy tower. In
addition to spending time in two of the most well-known birding areas,
Pipeline Rd. and Old Gamboa Road, we'll also enjoy a night drive and a
boat trip along the canal and the Chagres River. We also spend four
nights at the Canopy Lodge in El Valle de Anton with its higher and
cooler habitats. In addition to birds, we'll also explore the general
ecology of these areas as we learn about towering wild cashews and
figs, many species of palms, colorful heliconias, many butterflies and
other insects, and several mammals and reptiles. On past trips we've
encountered white-nosed coatis, four species of monkeys (mantled
howler, white-throated capuchin, lemurine night monkey, and Geoffrey's
tamarin), Central American agouti, capybara, three species of squirrel
(variegated, red-tailed, and Central American dwarf), and both two and
three-toed sloths. Spectacled caiman, American crocodile, green
iguana, common and striped basilisk lizards, geckos, and many anole
lizards are also frequently seen.
The cost will be about $3400 per
person, double occupancy, all inclusive from Panama City, and
including a $100 donation to the Huachuca Audubon Society.
For more information, please contact Mark Pretti at
mpnaturetours@earthlink.net
or 520-803-6889.
Birding Festivals
Apr 25 - 28. Annual
Verde Valley Birding Festival
at Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, AZ.
Learn more...
The Verde Valley is the best kept secret in Arizona for exciting birding.
Come see for yourself!
Jul 31 - Aug 3. 22nd Annual
Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival.
Learn more....
In order to locate upcoming festivals, please consult the
American Birding Association
Birding and Nature Festivals Directory
or the Cornell
Upcoming Bird Festivals and Events page.
Mission Statement
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The goal of Huachuca Audubon Society members is to conserve and
restore eco-systems so that birds and other wildlife can flourish and
enrich the Earth's diversity. Members enjoy observing wildlife and
seek its protection through efforts to advance public understanding of
the relationships of all life forms and the consequences of
interfering with these relationships.
Huachuca Audubon Society members are concerned conservationists who
work to extend the public awareness of the value of conservation. They
also seek to inform and influence lawmakers so that their work may
reflect this value.
More about Huachuca Audubon
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Questions regarding Huachuca Audubon should be directed to the
web master.
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Last update: 17 May 2013 by REW.