From the President

From the Co-Presidents: November 2026

Fall Happenings The Central Valley Birding Symposium will celebrate its 30th anniversary November 19-22 at the Stockton Hilton with four days of amazing workshops, speakers and field trips for birders of all levels. The schedule and registration information can be found here.  Yolo Bird Alliance is one of the CVBS sponsors

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From the Co-Presidents: October 2026

Fall Birding Fall is here and we are starting the season off at Yolo Bird Alliance with some exciting birding opportunities.  The first event is YBA’s first sponsored Pelagic Birding Boat Trip, which will leave from Sausalito Harbor on October 18 at 6am.  This is a rare opportunity to view

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From the Presidents: September 2026

From the Co-Presidents Welcome back Yolo Bird Alliance friends!   We hope you’ve had a great summer. We just had a YBA board meeting and have been making plans for the upcoming season. John Sterling will kick off our monthly members’ meeting on September 16th with a presentation on his recent

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From the Presidents: May 2026

From the Co-Presidents Bird-Window Collisions   In this last newsletter of the year before our summer break, we’d like to highlight a significant risk to birds that has recently been getting more attention.  Bird-window collisions, particularly in urban areas, are now recognized as one of the leading human-created causes of bird

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From the Presidents: April 2026

From the Co-Presidents Spring Events and Updates  In the October 2025 issue of the Burrowing Owl, we wrote about the habitat restoration project at the Pacific Flyway Pond (formerly known as North Regional Pond, just north of the Woodland Waste Water Treatment Plant).  Now, Yolo Bird Alliance, alongside Yolo County

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From the Presidents: March 2026

From the Co-Presidents    Spring is in the air, and with it we often find fresh energy and ideas.  Appreciation for birds may be seen in many creative ways, like photography, for instance, and here’s an another—poetry.  Yolo County resident and new birder Jamie Seibel expresses her feelings for birds

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From the Presidents: February 2026

From the Co-Presidents Great Backyard Bird Count.  Join National Audubon’s Great Backyard Bird Count this year on February 13-16, 2026.  NAS challenges all birders to participate by spending at least 15 minutes watching birds on one or more of these 4 days and report what you see at birdcount.org or through the eBird

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From the Presidents: January 2026

A New Yolo County Big YearRecord and Other News Yolo Bird Alliance is excited to announce that Julian Johnson broke the Yolo County Big Year record in 2025.  Please take time to read the details of this amazing feat in the article by Zane Pickus below. The California Bird Atlas

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From the Presidents: December 2025

It’s Christmas Bird Count Season We’re preparing for the 55th CBC with our Bird I.D. Workshop hosted by board members Bart Wickel and Zane Pickus on December 10th. They’ll give some CBC history, try to confound us with tricky I.D. problems, and present a brief eBird primer. In addition, they’ll

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From the Presidents: November 2025

Fall Bird News in OurCommunity and Beyond The new California Breeding Bird Atlas project was officially launched as of October 21st, with data collection to begin in January.  Yolo Bird Alliance is proud to be a founding partner along with about two dozen other Audubon chapters and bird conservation organizations.

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California Breeding Bird Atlas – Founding Partner Announcement

  We’re proud to be a Founding Partner of California Bird Atlas (@californiabirdatlas) — a new nonprofit launching the first-ever statewide effort to map California’s breeding birds. Forty-four other U.S. states have completed Breeding Bird Atlases — globally recognized tools that guide conservation and strengthen biodiversity. California is one of

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From the Presidents: October 2025

Yolo County Libraries Encourage Young People to Go Birding!      We’re excited to share with you that our new Birding Kits have been delivered to the seven Yolo County public libraries as part of the Yolo Bird Alliance’s effort to reach young birders and their families.  The kits will

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Fall Happenings

The Central Valley Birding Symposium will celebrate its 30th anniversary November 19-22 at the Stockton Hilton with four days of amazing workshops, speakers and field trips for birders of all levels. The schedule and registration information can be found here.  Yolo Bird Alliance is one of the CVBS sponsors and is pleased to have board member and UC Davis graduate student Lynette Duman as an organizer for a special program of student presentations at the event.  Hope you can make it!   

Time to think about the Christmas Bird Count!

    It’s not too early to make plans for our 2026 Putah Creek Christmas Bird Count (CBC) which will take place on December 20th.  A good place to start is by reading last year’s count writeup.  In spite of less than perfect weather for most of the day, we were able to count 144 species and hope to increase the total this year. 
   Also, be sure to save the date for our popular bird count I.D. workshop led by Zane Pickus at the members’ meeting on December 9th.  Besides reviewing hard to identify birds that may be seen on the count, CBC Compiler Bart Wickel will also introduce area leaders and briefly describe the 10 count areas.  This is a good time for CBC participants to sign up for their favorite birding location within the count. 
   Besides the CBC itself on December 20th, for the first time instead of a potluck, we’ll hold the post count gathering at Lamppost Pizza, where YBA will provide the pizza, and we’ll socialize while discussing the highlights of the day.
   More details to follow, but mark your calendars now!

Yolo Bird Alliance announces Small Grants Program for 2026

   The Yolo Bird Alliance is now accepting applications for small grants from individuals and non-profit organizations. The grants, of up to $3,000 each, are to be used for research, habitat restoration, and education related to avian natural history and conservation. The program is open to non-profits for education, but independent student research projects will be prioritized. Although preference is for studies located in Yolo County, projects located outside of Yolo that benefit Yolo County avian conservation will also be considered. YBA has supported several such projects in past years, and last year supported five research studies and two education programs. These included assessing the long-term benefits of nest boxes for bird conservation, to conducting the first Northern Harrier nest success study in the Sacramento Valley, to analyzing American Kestrel fledgling diets and adult movement in the greater Davis area.
   It is hoped that two to three projects will be funded on an annual basis with money raised by YBA memberships and other fundraising efforts. Application deadlines for this season are December 15th, 2026 and March 15th, 2027. Please contact Lynette Williams Duman, Yolo Bird Alliance Grant Committee Chair, if you have questions and would like more details and a grant application. 
   YBA looks forward to supporting more students and promoting more avian research and conservation with generous donations from our membership.

YBA Pelagic Trip canceled again

   Unfortunately, the second sold out pelagic trip that was to leave from the Sausalito Harbor on November 1 was canceled due to bad weather.  Trip leaders Zane Pickus and Emmett Iverson have now decided to wait until spring 2027 to try again.  Stay tuned!

–Genevieve Colborn and Ann Brice