I hope many of you participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count in February. I loved the photo and story Ann Burris posted on Facebook about her count. It had to do with temporarily depressed bird numbers on her property. Then when she looked through the window into the back yard, she saw why…a Cooper’s Hawk hanging out in her yard (above). Nice shot through the glass, Ann!
Your opportunity to get up to speed on eBird is coming soon. Yolo Audubon’s March 16th program is “eBird—The Basics.” We’re following up with an outing to the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area on March 19th, so you can learn to use the eBird app on your phone with help from the experts. This is a fun and easy way to ease into eBird or tune up your skills if you haven’t done it in a while. Thanks to Zane Pickus and Emmett Iverson for hosting the Zoom program on the 16th, as well as the field trip. They’ll both be heading off to college in the fall, so take advantage of their amazing expertise while they’re still here!
For those of you who don’t mind driving, the Plumas Audubon Society is offering a special field trip March 12th from 8 to 11 to see the very rare Brambling, a Eurasian species that has been over wintering in Quincy. This is only the 4th time the species has been recorded in California. For more information, contact Ryan Thoni at ryan@plumasaudubon.org.
Finally, we’d like to encourage you to become a candidate for the Yolo Audubon Board of Directors. We always need good volunteer board members. Please email us at yoloaudu@yoloaudubon.org if you’d like to learn more. The current board will vote on new board members at the May meeting, and terms will start in June of 2022.