Here’s a fun program that combines Classical Music and birds - what could be better?
Bird Flight Patterns and Music
Enjoy.
Interested in learning about activities offered during Savannah’s month long Earth Day celebration, then check out their website and calendar.
The calendar is live and will be updated weekly: http://earthdaysavannah.org/events/.
Ogeechee Audubon is participating with weekly bird walks in Forsyth Park, which you can also find on our website under events or on our field trip page.
2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the Ogeechee Audubon Society! The members of the Board of Ogeechee Audubon will be planning celebratory events over the next year marking these fifty years of fulfilling our mission to educate adults and children about birds, wildlife, and the environment.
Throughout 2020 Ogeechee Audubon will take a look back at our history here in Savannah and the surrounding low country. We will be sharing our history over the past 50 years by sharing our archived documents and notes. We will conclude the year with a special banquet celebrating our Golden Anniversary with all who have supported us and our mission over the past 5 decades.
As such we would like to ask each of you if you have a story to share about Ogeechee Audubon from your first hand experiences? If you remember a particular field trip, a person, or a time when you spotted a sought-after life bird. Ogeechee Audubon has a long history in our community and any anecdotes shared by folks like you will help weave a beautiful picture of the story of Ogeechee Audubon Society over the past 50 years. Please send your stories to ogeecheeaudubon.help@gmail.com.
Audubon North Carolina began banding Royal and Sandwich Terns with field-readable bands this year (2023). Ours are black with white lettering. As with black-banded Black Skimmers, please report them through the Bird Banding Lab's portal at www.reportband.gov or email at laddison@audubon.org.
Since 2018, the Virginia Tech Shorebird Program has been banding seabirds with white plastic field-readable (PFR) bands that have alphanumeric codes in black text.
If you have seen any of these banded birds, please report this information to vt.plover@gmail.com
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Here is a very interesting first-person article about pelagic birding off the coast of North Carolina, which does just that.
“Trip to photograph pelagic birds combines two loves,” by Peggy Baker.
This article was first published in Camera in the Wild, Summer 2021. Camera in the Wild is the official quarterly magazine for the Carolinas’ Nature Photographers Association (CNPA). This article has been extracted from that official publication with the explicit permission of both CNPA and the author, Peggy Baker.
Ogeechee Audubon would like to thank both CNPA and Ms. Baker for granting this permission and allowing this content to be shared with our members. To learn more about CNPA please visit: https://www.cnpa.org. And to explore Ms. Baker’s work, please visit: https://www.madangelphotos.com/Birdsphotos.
By Mary Lou Dickson
I know the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge is a favorite location for our club to go birding and the closure of the Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive has affected many of us. But I take comfort in the fact that the closure is to help repair, protect, and improve the wildlife habitat there …
Enjoy learning more about Ogeechee Audubon’s own “bird lady”, Diana Churchill in this short documentary by Nicholas Mullins.
Bird Lady | Short Documentary by Nicholas Mullins of Savannah, Georgia
Discovery at Deveaux! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSr6V3VDgFo)
This short film follows a team of shorebird biologists as they confirm the first census of a newly discovered Whimbrel roost in 2019. The final counts amount to nearly 20,000 individuals, representing half of the entire Atlantic Flyway population of this declining species using a single barrier island in South Carolina.
If you missed our Zoom meeting from April 20, 2021, our guest speaker Keren Giovengo, UGA EcoScapes Program Manager, spoke on the importance of native plants in attracting birds, the basics of planning and creating bird-friendly habitats, and how to create these landscapes in coastal Georgia.
Keren has graciously shared her presentation slides with us. Thanks Keren. You can access the slides here.
Here’s a fun program that combines Classical Music and birds - what could be better?
Bird Flight Patterns and Music
Enjoy.
Interested in learning about activities offered during Savannah’s month long Earth Day celebration, then check out their website and calendar.
The calendar is live and will be updated weekly: http://earthdaysavannah.org/events/.
Ogeechee Audubon is participating with weekly bird walks in Forsyth Park, which you can also find on our website under events or on our field trip page.
The Eckelberry Fellowship supports the work of wildlife artists through small grants, promoting nature as a subject of reverence and conservation.
Meet Isaiah Scott of @ikesbirdinghikes the 2021 Eckelberry fellow! Isaiah is an artist, photographer and rising star in the North American birding scene (he's a birding guide in his home state of Georgia and an active voice in the #birdnamesforbirds initiative), and he's only a high school senior! Headed to Cornell this fall, it's fitting that his grant project will focus on birds, and also fill a gap in birding history: his goal is to research and illustrate a cultural and field guide to the historic Gullah Geechee culture heritage Corridor (along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Northern Florida). "I have a desire to research the birds of these areas and how they connect to the people. How birds were affected by plantations and slave cultivation, how birds may have played a role in slave agriculture, what kind of birds did slaves see every day on the plantations, and how birds inspired them and are significant to their culture. I will specifically research the Gullah Geechee people whose roots can be traced back to Barbados," he says. The grant will fund travel expenses for field illustration, potentially taking him to Barbados as part of the book research. We are thrilled to support this innovative, original project and look forward to Isaiah's journey. We hope you do, too. Images: Isaiah in the field; his Bobolink; his self portrait with birds.
Ogeechee Audubon held its first public meeting since March when we went into flockdown. On September 19th OAS held the delayed Annual Meeting to elect officers, had a presentation on Kenyan birds and did a bird walk. A small group of OAS members gathered at the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal under the outdoor pavilion. The weather cooperated with cooler temperatures and a nice breeze. Everyone wore a mask and were appropriately social-distanced. The nominating committee presented the slate of officers for election: Leslie Weichsel, President; Mary Lambright, Vice President; Pam Smith, Treasurer; and Marty Foxx, Secretary. Being no opposition nor nominations from the floor, the slate of nominees was accepted unanimously for a two-year term ending April, 2022. What a strange year 2020 has been for us. This is our 50th Anniversary year, who would have thought it would turn out to be so unprecedented. This is sure one for the archives! We are hopeful we can slowly emerge from lockdown and conduct a few bird walks during these last months of this year.
-OAS Board of Directors
Ogeechee Audubon held it’s first Zoom meeting on October 13, 2020. A few adventurous souls joined our President, Leslie Weichsel, who hosted the club’s first virtual meeting over Zoom. Leslie’s presentation was from you Accidental Birder series. This time she explores Kenya.
If you missed the presentation, Leslie created a recording which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/aTDQCZ0I5i8 . Enjoy!
Focus on Nature with Virtual Enrichment Programs!
Keep your kids active and engaged with our virtual enrichment programs this fall! Classes are designed to promote curiosity with engaging educational content and connect kids to nature through hands-on outdoor missions.
Each program will run for five weeks, with one hour-long session each week. After each session, your child is welcome to stay online for an optional 15-minute, supervised social time where they can ask questions or chat about relevant topics. Most weeks, your child will also be given a “mission,” a fun hands-on project to complete before the next session that challenges them to apply their learning and explore outdoors independently.
Follow this link for more information and to enroll.
Rare little Blackbird fly away.
Fly towards the sky where the heavens stay.
Let your true vibrant colors rain down from your wing,
as you soar through the clouds and harmoniously sing.
But as you sing, you do not feel heard.
You feel like a lonely little blackbird.
Migrants fly by, attracted to your features,
prismatic aura, and noir plumage like an undiscovered creature.
They flock behind your colorful light, following wherever you went,
but as you continue to fly you still feel different.
“How did you get your colors”, “why do you fly so high” they asked.
As if you were never meant to be on this path.
As if you were meant to be trapped in a cage
or lost in the midst of a new age.
Ascending through the thick clouds, heaven bound,
in hope of stygian angels to be found.
Tending to wonder if you are all alone,
a great mistake, a broken bone.
Now ascending through the air, faced by a golden light.
Piercing through the clouds, making your dark feathers shine bright.
At last arriving at heaven’s gates,
where you no longer are alone,
where hope awaits.
2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the Ogeechee Audubon Society! The members of the Board of Ogeechee Audubon will be planning celebratory events over the next year marking these fifty years of fulfilling our mission to educate adults and children about birds, wildlife, and the environment.
Throughout 2020 Ogeechee Audubon will take a look back at our history here in Savannah and the surrounding low country. We will be sharing our history over the past 50 years by sharing our archived documents and notes. We will conclude the year with a special banquet celebrating our Golden Anniversary with all who have supported us and our mission over the past 5 decades.
As such we would like to ask each of you if you have a story to share about Ogeechee Audubon from your first hand experiences? If you remember a particular field trip, a person, or a time when you spotted a sought-after life bird. Ogeechee Audubon has a long history in our community and any anecdotes shared by folks like you will help weave a beautiful picture of the story of Ogeechee Audubon Society over the past 50 years. Please send your stories to ogeecheeaudubon.help@gmail.com.
Ogeechee Audubon Society offers four kinds of opportunities for members to participate in birding in the field:
Bird Walks – Bird walks will be held monthly at various locations to provide an opportunity for birders of all levels to come together. This self-directed activity and has no defined leader. …Open to read more….
Wait! Does that chick really need help? The sight of a baby bird unattended outside the nest is bound to awaken your compassionate instinct to protect it. But that rescue may not be necessary. In fact, it could be counterproductive.
Find out how to determine when you should intervene—and what to do if that baby bird really does need a helping hand.
