Goldfinch Gazette
The Newsletter of the Rockingham Bird Club
Volume XXXIII
FEBRUARY MEETING
DATE: Thursday, February 7, 2008 -- Carry in Dinner
TIME: 6:00 PM
PLACE: Trinity Presbyterian Church, 725 S. High St. Harrisonburg **Note place and time change
PROGRAM: We will have another wonderful carry-in dinner this month. We will meet at Trinity Presbyterian Church. Bring a dish. Paper goods and drinks will be furnished. Call Polly Scott at 433-8840 by February 4 if you are attending.
The speaker will be Charles Cartwright: who presently is the Superintendent of the Shenandoah National Park. Mr. Cartwright has held similar positions at Dinosaur National Monument, Dinosaur, Colorado, Devils Tower National Monument, Devils Tower, Wyoming, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Carlsbad, New Mexico and Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Stanto, North Dakota. He also served at two other parks after serving as Archaeologist at four Bureau of Land Management stations. He also served from 2004-2005 in the capacity of Associate to the Deputy Director of the National Park Service.
January Field Trips -- Tom Mizell
Monthly Hillandale Park Walk – Friday, February 8 - Let’s try again! We got snowed out in January as about _ foot of snow fell mainly during our scheduled walk time. Meet at the parking lot at the children’s playground at 8:30 AM for this midwinter walk. Dress warmly. If weather conditions are questionable you might call Tom Mizell at 828-6059.
Lost River Eagle Trip – Saturday, February 9 – Diane Holsinger will lead a trip to Lost River and Kimsey Run Reservoir areas in West Virginia to look for Bald Eagles and Red-headed Woodpeckers. Meet 9:30 AM at Broadway High School in Broadway. Going north on Rt. 42 turn right at first traffic light and go _ miles to high school. We will carpool from there. Wear warm clothes and take a snack. Contact Diane at 896-7132 or dhworkout@hotmail.com if you are going.
Look Out Your Windows! - Great Backyard Bird Count - Tom Mizell
The 11th annual “Great Backyard Birdcount(GBBC)” is scheduled for February 15-18, 2008. This is a great outdoor activity that families can do together. This event is sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. They were pleasantly flabbergasted by the surge in checklists during the 2007 count, and are hoping to reach (and perhaps exceed) that record-breaking level of participation in 2008. They received about 4,000 images for the 2007 photo contest and it’s been a tough call picking the best! Photos would make a nice complement to an article about the GBBC or as a stand-alone item. You can see some of them in the GBBC web site Gallery: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/gallery/2007).
The count provides an opportunity for you to document your sightings in a nationwide effort. Simply observe birding activity at your feeder, in your yard, and/or some favorite birding location-report the species and the maximum number of a particular species you see per day. The reporting of data is done over the Internet. Results are shown on both national and state maps by zip codes. If you have friends in another state you can check up on what is being seen in their neighborhood. Those that have participated in the past consider it fun and a worthwhile endeavor that gives a particular birding enjoyment in the middle of winter. For more information on last year’s count and information for this year’s check website: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/. If you don’t have Internet service you might make arrangements to share your information with a friend in the bird club so that your sightings become a part of this annual event.
Copyright 2008 Rockingham Bird Club. All rights reserved.