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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—
Pete Arnold, Audubon Rockies liaison
Greg Johnson, Bird Compiler—
307-634-1056, [email protected]
Conservation—Vacant
Belinda Moench, Education—638-8257
Field Trip—Vacant
Historian—Vacant
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]
Lorie Chesnut, Hospitality
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 Aug. 31.
Cheyenne-High Plains Audubon Soc.
P.O. Box 2502
Cheyenne, WY 82003-2502
http://home.lonetree.com/audubon
Wyobirds e-list - Subscribe, post and/or read interesting sightings: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-HOME.exe?A0=WYOBIRDS.
December 2016
Dec. 27-Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count and Tally Party
Cheyenne birders will meet at 7:30 a.m. at
Lions Park, in the parking lot by the old Com-
munity House behind the Children’s Village.
Please let Mark Gorges, mgorg-
[email protected], 634-0463, know if you plan to
come in case there are any changes in plans
due to weather.
Bring water, lunch, warm clothes,
binoculars, and a scope if you have one, and
whatever you need for a day watching birds at
Grayrocks Reservoir, Guernsey State Park, Ft.
Laramie National Historic Site, the Oregon
Trail Ruts and Hartville, leaving for Cheyenne
about 4 p.m., depending on weather or stop-
ping for refreshments or dinner.
Birding on your own or watching
your feeders? The center point of the 7.5 mile
radius count circle is where Highway 26 cross-
es the Goshen County/Platte County line.
Please send in your results ASAP to the count
compiler, Jane Dorn, 640-4002, lingle-
Anyone in the neighborhood of the
count area is welcome to meet Jane at 8 a.m. at
the Ft. Laramie Post Office, or at 9:30 a.m. at
the main entrance to Guernsey State Park.
Jan. 17—Program 7 p.m. Laramie County Library, Cottonwood Room: Tom Hiester
with IdentiFlight® will describe their work protecting eagles at wind energy farms. Technology is contributing to the conservation of eagles at windfarms, with Identi-Flight®, a machine vision system being tested at the Top of the World windfarm in Rolling Hills, WY. Jan. 24—Board Meeting 7 p.m. Laramie County Library, Windflower Room: planning for the coming year. Anyone interested in helping the chapter move forward with programs, outings or other activities is welcome to participate.
Be a field observer with a
group: Downtown Post Office
lobby, 2100 Capitol Ave., by
7:30 a.m.
Dress for the weather and bring
pencil, notepaper plus thermos, cookies, binoc-
ulars and field guide, if you have them. We
will divide into groups to visit simultaneously
Wyoming Hereford Ranch, High Plains Grass-
lands Research Station, F.E. Warren and Lions
Park. Your group may finish up within a cou-
ple of hours.
Be a field observer on your
own.
You are free to look for birds any-
where within the count circle—see map on p.
3. Record numbers of each species you ob-
serve and the amount of time and distance you
travel—and the kind of transportation you use.
Keep track of where and when you saw species
of note so we can tell if you counted the same
bird or flock as someone else.
For your report, compile the total
number of individuals of each species and
include your travel information. Turn in your
results at the potluck or call Greg Johnson,
CBC coordinator, 634-1056, gjohnson@west-
inc.com.
Be a feeder watcher. See p. 3.
Attend the CBC tally party
and potluck. Westgate activi-
ty center, 5519 Gateway Dr.,
6 p.m.
Bring your results and a food contri-
bution to share. At the intersection of Yellow-
stone and Carlson, go west on Carlson half a
block. Turn south on Gateway Drive (through
the gate). Look for the two-story building im-
mediately on the left. Thanks, John Cornel-
ison, for making arrangements for the tally
party location once again.
Get more potluck infor-
mation. Call Mark Gorges, 634-0463.
Dec. 30—Guernsey/Ft. Laramie Christmas Bird Count
Technology is contributing to the conservation of eagles at windfarms, with Identi-
Report on the Front Range Lakes birding trip on Nov 19 by Mark Gorges
Nov. 25 Cheyenne Country Club survey results by Mark Gorges
Visiting exotic warm climates vicariously is appealing when cold weath-er is about to hit at home and so we had a great audience of 48 for Pete Arnold’s talk about his trip to the Galapagos. Pete is an accomplished ama-teur photographer, managing to get some incredible shots, like the diving Blue-footed Boobie. It helps to have a camera that can shoot 1/3200ths of a second.
Anyone interested in birds for very long has heard about the Galapagos and its birds and wildlife. Perhaps what was new information for many of us was how tame the birds are—no one needs a long lens for capturing boobies, even dur-ing their courtship display. Another surprise is that the Galapagos Islands are tropical deserts.
“Tropical” doesn’t equate to jungle, only to latitude. And finally, we learned tourists are carefully scheduled. Pete, his wife Ruth and their small party always felt like they were the only ones at each stop. Ecuador is doing a great job of preserving its first national park and its inhabitants.
Seven people went on the trip. The bright sunny day started off cool, but it warmed up quickly. We saw large numbers of waterfowl including thousands of Canada Geese, many hundreds of Mal-lards and many gulls that were too far away to identify.
We saw 39 species: Canada Goose Gadwall American Wigeon Mallard Northern Shoveler Northern Pintail Canvasback Redhead Bufflehead Common Goldeneye Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser Ruddy Duck Horned Grebe Eared Grebe Western Grebe Great Blue Heron Northern Harrier Red-tailed Hawk Rough-legged Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk American Coot Ring-billed Gull gull species Rock Pigeon (Feral Pi-geon) Eurasian Collared-Dove Mourning Dove Belted Kingfisher Northern Flicker American Kestrel Blue Jay Black-billed Magpie American Crow American Robin European Starling American Tree Sparrow White-crowned Sparrow Red-winged Blackbird Western Meadowlark
Chapter News Jan. 21 — Field trip: Woodhouse Wildlife Management Area Leave from Lions Park at 8 a.m. Return around noon. The Woodhouse WMA is located about 20 miles west of Cheyenne and several miles north of Hap-py Jack Road. Expect to hike 3-4 miles. Dress for winter weather. Contact Mark Gorges, 287-4953, [email protected], if you want to come and want to be notified of any changes in plans due to weather.
Jan. 28—Laramie County School District #1 Science Fair Volunteers are needed to judge 4th-6th grade entries that qualify for the Audubon Award. Qualifying entries in-clude the topics of birds, wildlife, conser-vation and the environment. Judging is held early morning at Storey Gym. Please contact CHPAS Education Chair Belinda Moench, 638-8257, to volunteer for a judging team.
Jan. 28—Habitat Hero lecture Cheyenne Audubon is sponsoring one of the three spring garden lectures offered by the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and Laramie County Master Gardeners. The 1 p.m. presentation will in-clude clips from “Hometown Habitat.” Wyoming native plant expert Jane Dorn will facilitate a discussion among local Habitat Hero gardeners. Tickets will be available through the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, 637-6458 and at the door.
Ferruginous Hawk by Mark Gorges
Photo by Lorie Chesnut
Report on the November program: Pete Arnold’s photo tour of the Galapagos
Last Year’s Christmas Bird Count Results The final tallies and accounts (www.audubon.org/news/the-116th-christmas-bird-count-summary) of the 116th Christmas Bird Count (Dec. 2015-Jan. 2016) are available and it was one for the record books! More than 76,000 ob-servers counted almost 59 million birds in the U.S., Canada, the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Latin America. But even the largest and longest-running bird life census can yield some unexpected results. Find out how weather and other factors affected the count and what surprising species showed up. Go to http://netapp.audubon.org/CBCObservation/CurrentYear/ResultsByCount.aspx to see mul-tiple years of the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count. Use our count circle code: WYCH.
It was a cool, sunny morning, but a little breezy. Barb and I did the sur-vey. We saw 7 species.
Canada Goose 5 Rough-legged Hawk 1 Northern Flicker 4 Black-billed Magpie 11
American Crow 12 Townsend's Solitaire 2 European Starling 4
CHEYENNE CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT FEEDER-WATCHER DATA SHEET
Directions:
The feeder(s) you intend to watch on Dec. 27th must be within the “count circle,” an area defined by a 15-mile diameter circle cen-
tered on downtown Cheyenne. See the map below.
Identify and count the number of each species that visit your feeder on the day of the count. Record only the maximum number
seen at any one time. For example, if a single house finch visits your feeder 10 times, but you never actually see more
than one house finch at a time, then that counts as one house finch seen, not 10.
Record the total hours spent observing the action at the feeder. It is not necessary to watch the feeder the entire day. Even if you
can only watch for one hour, we’re still interested in receiving your data.
Please report the species and number observed ASAP to Greg Johnson, Cheyenne CBC compiler, at 307-634-1056 or by email
Date: Dec. 27, 2015 Name: ___________________________________________________
Phone: _________________________ Feeder(s) watched for ______ hours and _________ minutes.
_____ Rock Pigeon
_____ Eurasian Collared-Dove
_____ Northern Flicker
_____ Downy Woodpecker
_____ Blue Jay
_____ American Crow
_____ Black-capped Chickadee
_____ Mountain Chickadee
_____ Red-breasted Nuthatch
_____ White-breasted Nuthatch
_____ European Starling
_____ Dark-eyed Junco
_____ House Finch
_____ House Sparrow
Other species: _____________________
Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society
P.O. Box 2502
Cheyenne, WY 82003
“Turning Citizens into Scientists” How to keep a citizen scientist happy
Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Nov. 13, 2016 By Barb Gorges A year after I married my favorite wildlife biologist, he invited me on my first Christmas Bird Count.
It was between minus 25 and minus 13 degrees Fahren-heit that day in southeastern Montana, with snow on the ground. He asked me to take the notes, which meant frequently removing my thick mittens and nearly frostbiting my fingers. I am happy to report that 33 years later, my husband is the one who takes the notes and the Christmas Bird Count has become a family tradition, from taking our first son at eight months old and continuing now with both sons and their wives joining us. The Christmas Bird Count started in 1900 and is one of the oldest examples of citizen science, sending ordinary people (most are not wildlife biologists) out to collect data for scientific studies. In 1999, I signed up for the Cornell Lab of Ornitholo-gy’s Project FeederWatch and have continued each year. Last season 22,000 people participated. In 2010 I started entering eBird checklists and now I’m one of 327,000 people taking part since 2002. And there are nearly a dozen other, smaller, CLO projects. It is obvious CLO knows how to keep their citizen sci-entists happy. Part of it is that they have been at it since 1966. Part of it is they know birdwatchers. That’s because they are birdwatchers themselves. How do they keep us happy? I made a list based on my own observations—echoed by an academic paper I read later. First, I am comfortable collecting the data. The instruc-tions are good. They are similar to something I do already: keep-ing lists of birds I see. The protocol is just a small addition. For instance, in eBird I need to note when and for how long I birded and at least estimate how many of each species I saw. It makes the data more useful to scientists. Second, I am not alone. The Christmas Bird Count is definitely a group activity, which makes it easy for novice bird-ers to join us. I especially love the tally party potluck when we gather to share what the different groups have seen that day. Project FeederWatch is more solitary, but these days
there are social aspects such as sharing photos online. Over Pres-ident’s Day weekend when the Great Backyard Bird Count is on, I can see animated maps of data points for each species. On eBird, I can see who has been seeing what at local birding hotspots. Third, I have access to the data I submitted. Even 33 years later, I can look up my first CBC online and find the list of birds we saw, and verify my memories of how cold it was in December 1983. The eBird website keeps my life list of birds and where I first saw them (OK, I need to rummage around and see if I can verify my pre-2010 species and enter those). It compiles a list of all the birds I’ve seen in each of my locations over time (89 spe-cies from my backyard) and what time of year I’ve seen them. All of my observations are organized and more accessible than if I kept a notebook. And now I can add photos and audio record-ings of birds. A fourth item CLO caters to is the birdwatching com-munity’s competitive streak. I can look on eBird and see who has seen the most species in Wyoming or Laramie County during the calendar year, or who has submitted the most checklists. You can choose a particular location, like your backyard, and compare your species and checklist numbers with other folks in North America, which is instructive and entertaining. I would take part in the CBC and eBird just because I love an excuse to bird. But the fifth component of a happy citi-zen scientist is concrete evidence that real scientists are making use of my data. Sometimes multiple years of data are needed, but even reading a little analysis of the current year makes me feel my work was worthwhile and helps me see where my contribu-tion fits in. What really makes me happy is that I have benefitted from being a citizen scientist. I’m a better birder, a better observ-er now. I look at things more like a scientist. I appreciate the ebb and flow of nature more. If you have an interest in birds, I’d be happy to help you sort through your citizen science options. Call or email me or check my archival website listed below, or go to http://www.birds.cornell.edu.
