Upcoming field trip: Hereford Ranch

Our next field trip is this Saturday, May 21. Note that we'll leave at 7 am (one hour earlier than usual) because we will head to the Hereford Ranch on the east side of Cheyenne. Shawn Billerman will lead the search for songbirds. The riparian areas at the Hereford Ranch host an incredible array of expected migrants and often deliver a few rarities!

Again, meet downtown at Coal Creek at 7 am to caffeinate and carpool. We will be back to Laramie by noon--if you can only join us for part of the time, be prepared to drive your own vehicle.

All Laramie Audubon field trips are free and open to the public; families are welcome. This trip is a particularly nice one for beginning birders. Bring binoculars, water and snacks, and dress for the weather.

Yellow-rumped Warbler at Hereford Ranch. Photo (c) Shawn Billerman.

Upcoming field trip: Arapaho NWR

Saturday, May 7: Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge near Walden, Colorado, in North Park. Meet at 8:00 a.m. at Coal Creek Coffee, 110 E. Grand Ave., in downtown Laramie, to caffeinate and carpool. The drive to Walden is about one and a half hours via Hwy 230 to Walden CO with stops along the way at Sodergreen Lake west of Laramie and Walden Reservoir in Colorado.

We will look for shorebirds and waterfowl in breeding plumage, raptors and grassland birds. We may get lucky and see the Western Grebes in courtship display running across the water at Walden Reservoir. At the refuge, there is a hiking/interpretive trail through wetlands where we are apt to see swallows, wrens, warblers, and perhaps a moose. Be sure to bring plenty of snacks and water since this is a lengthy trip. It is possible to eat lunch in Walden after the field trip. We should return to Laramie by 2pm. The trip leader will most likely be taking a different return route on Jackson County Road 6E (gravel). Participants in their own vehicles are welcome to leave at any time.

Trip Leader: Vicki Henry, 307-760-9518. Call if you have questions. Be sure to program the leader’s phone number into your cell phone in case you get separated from the rest of the caravan. Fill your tank ahead of time if you are taking your own vehicle.

Western Grebes doing their courtship display. Photo (c) Steve Zamek, used with permission.

Audubon: the film

Laramie Audubon is happy to announce that it is co-hosting two screenings of a new film about the life of John James Audubon. The film will be shown in the Berry Center at 5 pm on Wednesday, May 4 and at 2 pm on Saturday, May 7.

The Audubon Society is named after John James Audubon, a pioneer of both North American birdlife and realistic wildlife illustration. Audubon's work strongly influenced following ornithological work as well as the conservation movement. Check out the website for the film to view a movie trailer and learn more about Audubon himself.

If you have some time to get lost in John James' beautiful art, National Audubon has digitized the illustrations from Audubon's Birds of America and you can browse them here.

Spring Exploration, 23 April

Laramie Audubon will have a table at the Spring Exploration event this Saturday from 12 - 4 pm at Territorial Prison. Catherine Symchych will have bird-related activities for kids, and we'd be happy to see adult members and friends there as well!

For more info on the event, click here.

Volunteers needed for nest monitoring at Hutton Lake NWR

Brian Waitkus repairing older nest boxes at Hutton.

Laramie Audubon Society has installed 21 nest boxes at Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge. These boxes will be used by Tree Swallows and possibly Mountain Bluebirds or House Wrens. We need volunteers for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Citizen Science Project NestWatch. This will involve checking nest boxes every 3-4 days (or once per week) in the mid-afternoon and completing a data sheet online. You must be certified as a nest-watcher. This is easy to do by going online to NestWatch's nest monitoring protocol. LAS will be numbering and mapping the boxes prior to monitoring for easy identification on the data sheets.

If you would like to volunteer, you may sign up for one week or many weeks. You may sign up for a few, many or all of the nest boxes. Hopefully, we can get enough people involved to make it less time consuming for the observers. This will require quite a bit of walking since the refuge is now closed to vehicular traffic except along designated roadways. You will also need a mirror attached to a long handle (back-scratchers at Dollar Tree are one dollar!) to see inside the boxes to count the eggs. The nest boxes are located along the perimeter fencing of the refuge. The refuge is located about 7.5 miles southwest of Laramie. We would like to begin monitoring in mid-May.

Please call Vicki Henry at 307-760-9518 or email her at vickis@uwyo.edu with your interest or questions. Vicki will be coordinating volunteers for the scheduling of observation dates.

One of the many nest boxes built by Eagle Scout Bradley Wahlgren and installed at Hutton last fall.

Upcoming talk: UW Raccoon Project

Photo by Flickr user Triker-Sticks CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

University of Wyoming Raccoon Project: Ecology and Behavior of a Misunderstood Species

Please join us on Wednesday, April 27 to learn about a highly adaptable urban carnivore found right in your own backyard – the raccoon! Sarah Daniels, a graduate student in the Animal Behavior and Cognition Lab, will give an overview of the University of Wyoming Raccoon Project (UWRP), raccoon natural history, and ongoing/upcoming local research with these critters. You may think you know the raccoon, but Sarah will show you there is much more going on with these guys than their trash-eating abilities!

Please note that we will meet in a different location than usual, Classroom Building 215. You can park along 9th Street, but space is often limited. We recommend parking near the Berry Center as usual and walking south to the Classroom Building.

Bird chat with refreshments will begin at 6:30 pm and the talk will begin at 7:00 pm.

The talk is free and open to the public!

Upcoming field trip: Hutton Lake NWR

Yellow-headed Blackbird. Photo (c) Shawn Billerman.

Libby Megna will lead us to Hutton Lake NWR once again this Saturday, April 23. We should see waterfowl, shorebirds, raptors, and songbirds.We will also take some time to monitor the swallow nest boxes on the fences around Hutton.

Meet at Coal Creek at 8 am to fuel up on coffee. We should be back to Laramie by noon or so, but of course you can leave early if you drive your own vehicle or arrange with carpool buddies. Bring binoculars, a spotting scope if you have one, snacks/drinks and dress for the weather.

CANCELLED field trip: Sage-Grouse lek

Dawn at the lek. Photo by Libby Megna.

UPDATE: Due to the forecasted inclement weather through the weekend, and the winter conditions that have already started, we have decided to CANCEL our trip to the sage-grouse trip on Saturday, April 16. We have decided not to reschedule the trip this time. Hopefully we have better luck next year.

UPDATE: The trip has been postponed to April 2 due to the snowstorm and resulting poor road conditions.

This Saturday, March 26 On April 16, weather permitting, we will head out to a Greater Sage-Grouse lek. Come and watch these iconic birds strut their stuff on their display ground. Meet at 6 am at the Eppson Senior Center parking lot, at Curtis St. and 3rd St. We will carpool to the lek at 6:10 am sharp.  The early start is totally worth it--there's nothing like being audience to dozens of male Sage-Grouse calling and dancing to attract mates.

Female Greater Sage-Grouse. Photo © Shawn Billerman.

April Board Meeting

We will hold a board meeting this Thursday, April 14 at 6:30 pm in room 227 of the Berry Center. Our board meetings are open to the public, so if you are interested in the behind-the-scenes of the Laramie Audubon Society, feel free to join us.

Upcoming field trip: Hutton Lake NWR

Western Meadowlark. Photo (c) Shawn Billerman.

Yours truly (Libby Megna) will lead a trip to my favorite Laramie Plains birding spot, Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge, on Saturday, April 9. The refuge is one of the best places to bird this time of year--we should see lingering ducks, shorebirds, grebes, raptors, and recently arrived songbirds. Migration is in full swing, so we are likely to find some surprises.

We will meet at Coal Creek Coffee at 8 am to preemptively caffeinate and carpool. Please bring binoculars, a spotting scope if you have one, field guides, and snacks and drinks. Be prepared for windy conditions. Our trips to Hutton usually last a few hours, but anyone is free to leave early if they bring their own vehicle.

Hutton and Hoge Lakes. Photo by Libby Megna.

Upcoming talk: Hummingbirds by Holly Ernest

Photos courtesy of Holly Ernest.

On Wednesday, March 30, Dr. Holly Ernest will give a talk entitled Hummingbird Health Program in Wyoming and Colorado--DNA, disease, field research, and how you can help! As usual, we meet in the Berry Center; bird chat with refreshments will start at 6:30 pm, and the talk will begin at 7:00 pm. 

Hummingbirds provide vital ecological functions, including pollination and eating insects. As ecosystem sentinels, as they travel among flowers and prey on thousands of tiny insects, they can also tell us a lot about the health of the environment. Even more special is that they are stunningly beautiful birds, with bright iridescent colors. We need to learn their population numbers, biology, and health status in order to better conserve them. There are currently very little information on their diseases, population health, genetic diversity and population structure for the hummingbird species breeding and migrating through Wyoming, Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain region, and the Hummingbird Health Program is helping to change that.

Dr. Holly Ernest will talk about the Hummingbird Health Program at University of Wyoming, her team’s research studies in the field and in the DNA lab, and how members of the interested public can help. She will have a demonstration of the field equipment they use to gently capture, examine, measure, sample, then release these special tiny birds that weigh less than a US nickel. Check out their work at http://www.wildlifegenetichealth.org/ and click on the hummingbird.

Upcoming field trip: Plains Lakes

Great-tailed Grackle

Update: This trip is still happening despite the weather!

This Saturday, March 26 we will head out to the Plains Lakes for some spring birding. Shawn Billerman will lead the search for waterfowl and other early spring migrants. This is a great opportunity to learn duck identification and visit some of the best birding spots in the Laramie Plains. We usually stop by Blake's Pond, Meeboer Lake, Gelatt Marsh, and Lake Hattie.

Meet at Coal Creek Coffee at 8 am to caffeinate and carpool. Bring binoculars and a spotting scope if you have one, dress for the weather, and bring water and snacks. We should be back in Laramie around noon, but if you drive yourself you are free to join us for any length of time.

Lake Hattie. Photo by Libby Megna.