What more lovely combination can there be than birds and brunch on a beautiful May Mother s Day? Bring your brunch and your Mom to Sharon Audubon Center on Mother’s Day and reserve a picnic table in a lovely spot, where your party will be edu-tained by a few of our resident Birds of Prey and their Sharon Audubon staff handlers. You ll have the opportunity to view these birds up close, ask questions, and learn an interesting fact or two about their role as mothers in the wild.
Program Fee: $75/table
Limited to six (6) tables that comfortably seat 6 people per table
And, you might only think cow waste contributes to global warming. But guess what? Human waste does too. Hence the “Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet.” Read more at Mongabay.
Finally, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) “invites you to celebrate Gopher Tortoise Day on April 10. This year, you can celebrate gopher tortoises by making your yard tortoise friendly and participating in our new recognition program.” Learn more at FWC’s website.
Read all of WGCU’s environmental coverage here.
Linda Steele/Audubon Photography
Do & Learn
April 12, 2021, How long can two people live on food destined for the trash bin? Find out as the ninth annual “Ding” Darling Film Series wraps up with the documentary
Credit Dorian Anderson/Audubon Photography Awards
Wyoming is a stronghold for the sage grouse. But a new study from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) finds the birds are on a long-term decline.
USGS research ecologist Cameron Aldridge and his team compiled data from states across the entire range of the sage grouse. The scientists saw an 80 percent decline in males attending breeding grounds (or leks) since the 1960s. Sage grouse are sort of an icon of the West and they represent the intactness or the health of the sagebrush ecosystem, he said. They ve sort of been set on this pedestal as this umbrella that if sage grouse are doing well, so are all the other plants and critters and functions of the sagebrush ecosystem.
The Current
Much of Colorado is breeding ground for double-crested cormorants, which don’t have fully waterproof feathers and therefore have to spend extra time preening and sunbathing. This is just one example of the importance of water to area birds.
Sharon Milligan/Audubon Photography Awards
February is National Embroidery Month did you know? It’s also National Hot Breakfast Month and Black History Month. Observed annually on Feb. 14 is the well-known Valentine’s Day, and February 17 is National Cabbage Day.
These monthly observations can be quite fun to learn about and celebrate – perhaps with some sauerkraut on the menu. But when we saw that February is National Bird-Feeding Month, Eagle River Watershed Council staff decided that it’s timely to share some important information about our feathered friends and the role our rivers and streams play in their lives.
Audubon Announces Innovative Bill Would Promote Regenerative Ranching in California Published: Thursday, 11 February 2021 05:56
Western Meadowlark Photo: Robert Harwood/Audubon Photography Awards
Audubon-sponsored bill encourages ranching practices that restore grasslands and sequester carbon.
February 11, 2021 - Sacramento, Calif. - California state Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) on Wednesday, along with a number of Senate and Assembly coauthors, introduced a groundbreaking bill this week that would offer financial incentives from the California Department of Conservation to ranchers and other private landowners to implement grazing practices that restore grassland habitat, soil health and biodiversity on some of California’s most endangered and sensitive landscapes. Senate Bill 322 would establish the California Conservation Ranching Incentive Program as part of the existing California Farmland Conservancy Program to contract with ranchers on lands deemed especially i