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November-December
2000
The
Goldfinch
The
newsletter for the Daviess County Audubon Society
Meetings
Sept.-June, each second Monday at 7 PM at The Technical College 1501 Frederica Street,
Owensboro, KY
Directors’
meetings are the first Monday of each month
50
Christmas Bird Counts Remembered Nov 13
Very few organizations are blessed to have
members who possess the qualities that will make Joe Ford’s presentation this month
so meaningful. Joe is a rare bird because of
his dedication, longevity, continuity, and record keeping with the Christmas Bird Count
during his lifetime. It is impotant for our
club to heed the sage observations of people like Joe Ford, and Bert & Millie Powell. It is also fun to hear them relate their
experiences in the hedgerows and along the country lanes of Daviess County. We are issuing a special invitation to the Girl Scouts to attend our November meeting because they
are studying bird identification next month as they prepare to participate in the annual
census of birds in our area. This program can
serve not only to let us share Joe’s memories, but we can start the holiday season
off the right way without credit cards, wrapping paper, traffic jams or crowded malls.
Our Pigeon
Flew the Coop
Due to a miscommunication, our speaker did
not show for our October meeting. We are
asking Joe Ford to give up a small amount of his program time November 13th so
that we can have a very quick cram course about pigeons.
We’ll learn about the pigeon’s unique traits, its contrasted esteem in
Europe and North America, and its popularity as a hobby in our community.
Let’s
do the Gorge with George
It has been said that Kentucky’s Red
River Gorge is the most beautiful place in our state.
Many of us have never had the opportunity to take in the beauty of its spectacular
scenery. This month, Bill and Brenda Little
will lead a group on a hike that is planned to be easy to moderate in degree of
difficulty. The group will depart Owensboro
on November 10 to spend the night in Slade, KY. We
have reserved a cottage that sleeps 10 where there will be a meeting around 9 PM EST to
discuss the hike and to go over the types of terrain, flora and fauna that we expect to
see the following morning. The cost for food
and lodging is expected to be $50 per person depending on the number of people who sign up
for the trip. We plan to begin our 0 to 3
mile hike the next morning at 9 AM Eastern Standard Time.
Mid afternoon, we will begin our drive back to Owensboro. The motel is 250 miles from Owensboro. Please phone (270) 298-4237 or email bandb3@mindspring.com before November 7 to
reserve your place on this trip and to get carpool and driving directions.
Campus
Bird Counts # 11 and 12 will be the Sundays following our monthly meetings
Madeline Oetinger, co-chair of the Owensboro
Community College Campus monthly bird census, has chosen 2 PM on Sunday afternoons,
November 19 and December 17 as the time our group will do a 2 hour walk noting the species
and number of birds on the campus.
We apologize to the people who showed up for
the count on October 15 only to find themselves alone in the parking lot. Because so many of our members had conflicts, we
were forced to change the date of the count after the newsletter was mailed. We promise to do our very best to stay with the
published details in the future. These
outings are open to the public and are free of charge.
Meet in the South parking lot across from Deer Park Elementary School.
Bird Seed
Sale is November 25
Mark your calendar for the Saturday after
Thanksgiving when we will sell birdseed all day at The
Pet Food Center in Wesleyan Park Plaza. This
is our major fundraiser. Mr. Mike Stepto, the
business owner, makes a donation to our club each time we man a booth at his store. We will staff the booth to answer questions about
bird feeding, about our chapter mission and activities, to recruit new members and to help
customers load purchases into cars. We will
need volunteers to work in two-hour shifts beginning at 9 AM until 5 PM. There will be a sign-up sheet at the next meeting
where you may schedule the time that you would like to work or you may phone Laura Morris
at 926-8803 for the time(s) you desire. Please
tell your friends and neighbors to support our efforts by buying their birdseed from us
the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Birding
for Beginners December 9
Volunteers are needed to teach about the
basics of birding to a group of Girl Scouts and their leaders from 10 AM to 1 PM at the
Scout Camp located south of Owensboro off of Highway 231.
Topics covered will be the use of binoculars, identifying 20 to 30 birds common to
our area, using field guides, and keeping records of sightings. To volunteer, sign up with Carolyn Williams at the
next meeting, 683-5863, or cs.Williams@mindspring.com.
Field Trip
Report
The October trip to Patoka River Refuge was
a new venture for our club. The Refuge is so
new that there is not yet much in the way of a visitors’ center or direction signs. We hiked along the Patoka River and a couple of
brave souls climbed the forest fire watch tower for a bird’s eye view of the fall
colors in the forest below. The fauna
highlights of the day were a Mourning Cloak butterfly and a Black throated green warbler. We all got a good case of warbler neck as we
studied the tiny bird flitting in the canopy 40’ in the air.
Nature Day
2000 Report
A staff shortage at Audubon State Park
caused Don Boarman to cancel as our stryteller for nature day on October 24. Four of our member: Mary Kissel, Laura Morris,
Bill and Brenda Little made last minute plans to tell 250 6th graders the story
of John James and Lucy Audubon’s lives. Life
sized pictures of 7 birds were placed in trees to illustrate to the kids how we watch and
identify birds. The students really enjoyed
their day outside the walls of their classrooms. Mike
Henshaw and Joe Ford are members of our chapter who manned two of the 10 stations set up
around the pond on the Community College campus. This
event takes a great amount of organization and advance work. We commend the college for providing this
fun-loaded nature experience to the students. The
weather was unusually warm for October, but this event is weather-dependent and rain would
have forced a cancellation. Therefore, we
gave thanks for the clear skies as we fanned our faces and mopped sweat. That’s just part of nature, you know.
We’ll
go from Mexico to Maine December 11
Two of our members had extraordinary
experiences this summer that they will be sharing with us at our December meeting. Joyce Porter attended ornithology classes at an
Audubon Ecology Camp in Maine. Camp should
not just be for kids and Joyce has told us that the fun and learning met, even exceeded,
her expectations.
Madeline Oetinger traveled south of the
border where she must have been searching high and low because she added several species
to her life list and found an artifact believed to date to the stone age. Madeline is having a hard time of keeping a secret
about her find until the program time. Archaeology
is fascinating to many of us and it is a special happening when one of us makes such a
find. You will not want to miss the
opportunity to hear about Madeline’s experience and to see her display.
Rose Ann Radzelovage plans to bring us
pictures to the December meeting of the little bird she named Alexander and tell of her
happy memories hand raising this orphaned bird.
Everybody
Counts!
Save your Saturdays in December so that you
can participate in the annual Christmas Bird Counts. This
is the 101st year since the Audubon Society began what has become for thousands
of people an integral part of their holiday tradition.
There will be something for everyone to do in addition to counting birds. We need people for cooking and serving lunch to
the hungry census takers, driving, taking notes for the counters, and tabulating at
day’s end. There will be sign-up sheets
at the November 13 and December 11 meeting for all volunteer positions we need to fill.
16
December 8 AM
The East Daviess County Count will be based
at the Yelvington Volunteer Fire Station located on Yelvington-Knottsville Road. Bert Powell will be in charge of assigning routes
in the census area. There has been discussion
about expanding the count to include as many of the hours in a 24 hour period as possible
this year. We think it is possible that some
of our member who live in the Maceo area might consider putting in some graveyard shift
time. Please contact Bert at 264-1534 to get
your assignment location for any counting you are willing to do before the 8 AM start
time.
30
December 8 AM
The West Daviess County Count has been based
at Janet Howard’s home at 3534 West Parrish Avenue in past years. This year the newsletter went to press without
confirmation from Janet about the count date and etc.
Therefore, if Janet’s home is not available, we will use the McDonalds on West
Parrish as our base.
6 January
2001
There will be other bird counts in the area,
but we have not been able to get the details by the time we have to print and mail the
newsletter. Details will announced at the
next two meetings and will be posted on our Web site, audubon.wku.edu.
Please visit our Web site at audubon.wku.edu. Along with other Kentucky Audubon chapters, we
are a work in progress and your patience is appreciated.
Programs and Field Trips are listed for the next 9 months on our Web page.
Membership
Matters
During the next two months, the National
Audubon Society is offering a special enrollment incentive to chapters to encourage us to
work for adding new members to our roles. We
will receive a bonus paid to our treasury for each new member we bring in. We would like to encourage each of our members to
ask friends and family to join our chapter. We
offer a wide variety of programs, field trips, a monthly newsletter, 4 issues of Audubon
Magazine, and community service projects that are fun and beneficial. A membership makes a nice gift as well and is a
bargain at a new members’ cost of $20 per year or $30 for a two year membership. For gift memberships, we will enclose a gift card
with our newsletter telling the recipient that you have thought of them in a very special
way.
To be certain that our chapter gets the
maximum reward from NAS, please mail new membership information and checks to our
treasurer, Rose Ann Radzelovage at 2224 Fairview Drive, Owensboro, KY 42303.
Thank you,
Kathryn!
Director Kathryn Clay hosted the Kentucky
Audubon Council meeting at her home for our fall meeting.
There could not have been a better setting for this very important meeting. (The KAC is in the early stages of a fund drive
for setting up a state office) Kathryn arranged her living room with a conference table to
seat the 15 attendees. She prepared a lunch
of chili, pasta salad, shrimp salad, ham with cheese sandwiches, and persimmon pudding
squares. The delegates were able to ear lunch
al fresco on the sun deck where they enjoyed the magnificent fall weather.
Kathryn has also donated the proceeds from a
recent garage sale to the Daviess County Audubon Society’s Endowment Fund. Thank you, Kathryn, for thinking of the financial
needs we have with our projects and programs.
From the
President’s Perch
Happy Holidays! I can think of nothing to relieve the stress of
twenty-first century cooking and shopping better than the great outdoors. I recommend that we all luxuriate with quiet
times as we watch the birds at our feeders with nothing more than a cup of tea or coffee
pressing us for completion. Cornell’s
FeederWatch project is another good way to sit still while the others in the fast lane
push and shove their way around the malls. (Irish
Coffee is a holiday event at our house)
Gift memberships to Audubon are as easy as
writing a check and stamping an envelope. Ken
Kaufman’s new bird guide will soon be in bookstores, and that too would make a great
gift. You could do your holiday shopping at
the Pet Food Center the Saturday after Thanksgiving along with our birdseed sale and avoid
the mess at the mall. And then, as we give to
those we love, let’s give to our community and our planet by volunteering to help the
next generation with the Girl Scouts’ Birding for Beginners class, by working at the
seed sale, or by helping with one of the Christmas Bird Counts. Audubon people are the best at putting the brakes
to the runaway commercial train. Let’s
reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink paper, and greet the next century with optimism.
Cheers from Large Avian
Officers and Directors for 2000-2001 President G. Wm.
“Bill” Little, Jr. (270) 298-4237 Vice-President & Program Chairman Mike Henshaw (270)
275-4250 Secretary Margaret Craig
(270) 684-4501 Treasurer Rose Ann
Radzelovage (270) 683-5972 Membership Chairs Mike Kavolus
(270) 685-3305 & Janet Howard (270) 926-3795 Education Chairs Madeline Oetinger
(270) 683-7681 & Carolyn Williams (270) 683-5863 Field Trips Chair Rob Rold (270)
684-3209 Conservation
Chair
Scott Holder (270) 684-1582 Newsletter Editor Brenda Little
(270) 298-4237 Webmaster Julian Wilson (270)
684-0829 Publicity Chair Alice Gene
“Aggie” Lewis (270) 684-0536 Hospitality Chair Ova Hookey (270)
683-6364 Directors:
Kathryn Clay, Pat Connell, and Lifetime Honorary Directors: Elinor Wilson, Joe Ford, A. L.
“Bert” Powell, and Mildred “Millie” Powell