On Sunday our survey group saw 22 Long Billed Curlews in formation above Virgin
Creek!  I was able to focus in with the spotting scope to confirm their
brilliant cinnamon color and long bills!  What a site to see.

For those of you not on the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society mailing list...

"Now you can sharpen your bird identification skills and learn more about the
secret life of birds.

Professor Greg Grantham of the College of the Redwoods is offering "Birds of the
North Coast" this fall at the Fort Bragg campus. This three-unit course is a
comprehensive introduction to the biology, evolution, anatomy, physiology, and
behavior of birds. Special emphasis will be placed on the identification,
natural history, and ecology of North Coast birds. This is a natural history
course for the beginning and intermediate bird watcher.

The class begins on August 25 and will meet on Tuesdays from 9:00 am until 3:10
pm, with a lunch break at noon. There are only a few days left to register, so
call the college at 962-2600 for more information about Biol 16: Birds of the
North Coast."

Dear Friends,
We hope you are having a magnificent summer.  Recent sightings on Ten Mile Beach
on SOS surveys include a Baird's Sandpiper and 15 Snowy Plovers.  Joleen and
Autumn's stunning sighting of Long-billed Curlews is the thrill of the summer in
my book.  Marbled Godwits seem to be drifting into town and we are all still
looking for the Franklin's Gull that Karen sighted on Ten Mile Beach.

In celebration of our gifted and busy volunteers, I wanted you to know about a
couple of things:  Maureen Eppstein's new book of poetry is out and she will
perform a reading of "Roague Wave At Glass Beach" this coming Saturday, August
15 at 3:30 p.m. at the old Odd Fellows Hall in Mendocino.  I hope you can join
us.  Come a little early and get a last look at the Naturall Inspired Art Show
currently on exhibit at the historic buildling at the corner of Kasten and Ukiah
Streets.  The show is an effort by five environmental organizations including
Audubon, the Mentodino Land Trust, MAPA and the Noyo Food Forest.  Artists in
several media have depicted our local natural history.  The show is open daily
from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. through Sunday, August 16.

And SOS volunteer Jeanette Boyer's new novel "Junkyard Dreams" is out and
available at the Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino Village.

As always, thank you so much for all your good help and support.
Becky B.

Dear Fellow SOS Volunteers--Sorry for all the misspellings in the posting
yesterday:

The Naturally Inspired art show at the Odd Fellows Hall in Mendocino Village is
open 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. through this coming Sunday, August 16.

The show celebrates our local natural history in several media and is a
collaboration of local environmental and conservation groups including Audubon,
the Mendocino Land Trust, MAPA and the Noyo Food Forest. Janet Self, of
FLOCKworks, coordinated the show.

Maureen Eppstein's new book of poetry, "Rogue Wave at Glass Beach" will be
celebrated with a reading by the author at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, August
15.

In my defense, my fingers were slightly clawed yesterday from weed-pulling work
at Virgin Creek.  An intrepid group of volunteers, State Parks aides, our State
Parks Environmental Scientist and a cheerful group from the Student Conservation
Association tackled the last bunch of European beach grass at the beach. 
Pictures will be up on this listserve momentarily......

Hi Becky,

I saw your artwork at the Odd Fellows Hall.  You are very talented.  I can't
wait to see your new natural field guide.  I will be first in line to purchase
it.

Fred Andrews
California State Parks Interpreter II

Mendocino District
12301 North Highway 1 Box1
Mendocino, CA 95460
Phone: (707) 961-0471
Fax: (707) 961-1287


________________________________

From: AudubonSOS@yahoogroups.com on behalf of bowen_becky
Sent: Fri 8/14/2009 6:54 AM
To: AudubonSOS@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AudubonSOS] Of Spelling--and Spotting



Dear Fellow SOS Volunteers--Sorry for all the misspellings in the posting
yesterday:

The Naturally Inspired art show at the Odd Fellows Hall in Mendocino Village is
open 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. through this coming Sunday, August 16.

The show celebrates our local natural history in several media and is a
collaboration of local environmental and conservation groups including Audubon,
the Mendocino Land Trust, MAPA and the Noyo Food Forest. Janet Self, of
FLOCKworks, coordinated the show.

Maureen Eppstein's new book of poetry, "Rogue Wave at Glass Beach" will be
celebrated with a reading by the author at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, August
15.

In my defense, my fingers were slightly clawed yesterday from weed-pulling work
at Virgin Creek.  An intrepid group of volunteers, State Parks aides, our State
Parks Environmental Scientist and a cheerful group from the Student Conservation
Association tackled the last bunch of European beach grass at the beach. 
Pictures will be up on this listserve momentarily......



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

Our SOS journey started with State Parks work to remove European Beach Grass at
MacKerricher Park and restore critical habitat for shorebirds.  This effort
continues and the latest chapter is the removal of a large patch of the invasive
non-native on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 under the direction of Parks
Environmental Scientist Angela Liebenberg, and with the help of Park Aides
Robert Gaines and Louie Reynolds, SOS volunteers and members of the Student
Conservation Association.  SCA members are Eric Seefeld, Mallory Kendall,
Christina Penticuff, Keegan Alexander, Margaret Ackroyd, Skyler Suhrer and  Tom
Montsos.  Only a small area of European beach grass remains on Virgin Creek and
that's on our radar screen.  Pictures of the work are posted here.  Click on
Photos - European Beach Grass Busters.  Big hint here--this is hard, dirty
work--but very rewarding.

Please click on Files, then Ten Mile Walk Poster-large for your invitation to
the Second Annual Ten-mile Ten Mile Hike down the face of Ten Mile Beach and
beyond.  This is a grand hike that takes us through the areas where we have
worked so hard to preserve and restore critical habitat, especially for
shorebirds.  It goes through Coastal Strand, the wetlands area around Lake
Cleone, Coastal Bluff, Coastal Prairie and Bishop Pine Forest.  This is a
strenuous hike for the strong-hearted.  We don't exactly go down the beach like
Usain Bolt, but it is a strong, steady pace.  For those who prefer a short,
sweet, easy hike, check out the Virgin Creek survey open to the public on First
Friday in Fort Bragg--on our listserve calendar. This is a grand way to end and
celebrate the summer and the end of our work with the TogetherGreen team.

Hi all -

Joleen has done a beautiful job of entering your July observation data, which
are now available online.

You might notice that the spreadsheets are significantly different from past
years.  We had to re-design them to fit the format for "E-Bird," Cornell
Ornithology Lab's online bird checklist and data gathering tool.  Joleen has
been working on uploading your data from this and previous years, so that your
observations are becoming part of the larger monitoring effort!

You can find July's spreadsheets in the Files section of the Yahoo Group.  In
addition, there is a link to eBird in the Links section.  If you want to, you
can register as a new user, peruse their site, and start using some of the neat
tools they have.

As always, if you have questions about the spreadsheets, eBird, or anything else
SOS, feel free to contact Joleen, Becky or myself.

Thank you for your wonderful efforts!

Angela

Toby Tobkin just called to tell us a Buff-brested Sandpiper had been spotted at
about 1:40 p.m. today at Virgin Creek Beach.  Does life get any better?  This is
an extremely rare bird for these beaches.

Sunday, 23 August, two rare birds were found
at Virgin Creek beach in the early afternoon.

The credit and kudos should go to:

Barbara Dolan- BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER
Barbara Dolan & Cheryl Watson- RED KNOT

Both are very good birders from Ukiah. Several
other birders, besides Toby Tobkin, also were
lucky to see these birds yesterday: David Jensen,
Jim Havlena, Vishnu, and myself.

Karen Havlena
North of Fort Bragg, CA

SOS star Toby Tobkin spotted four Hudsonian Godwits yesterday at Glass Beach. 
This is an extemely rare bird here, the first county sighting.  Several birders
from outside the area were in town late yesterday in hopes of seeing them again.
Just in case, it's worth dropping by Glass Beach either early or late in the day
for the next few days.  Vacation time is pretty much over, and the shorebirds
have re-taken the Glass Beaches.  Yesterday, I counted 62 Black Turnstones on
the main beach at 4 p.m., and there were surely more.  We hope you are enjoying
the amazing migration coming through right now.  Click on the files section for
an invitation to the second annual Ten-mile Ten Mile Hike on Sunday, September
6.  We are going to hike from Ten Mile River to Glass Beach.  We can hardly wait
to see the list of this hike.

If anyone can cover the survey on Ten Mile Beach on Saturday, September 12,
please let Becky know at casparbeck@...  Thanks

I left Ten Mile Beach a short while ago.  There is a Hudsonian Godwit foraging
up there with a Marbled Godwit--about 1/2 mile north of Ward Avenue, just north
of the symbolic fencing.  Very rare here.  Four of the Godwits have been sighted
here on Glass Beach, Virgin Creek and now Ten Mile Beach during the last few
days.  I hope you get a chance to see this.  It's thrilling.  If you see the
bird, please respect its space.  The bird I saw was feeding like it was
starving.  It was too busy eating to look up and I kept a good distance.  Am
putting shots up on this listserve in a few minutes.  Click on photos and we'll
set up a separate album for Hudsonian Godwit.  And just to make the day even
better, there were 17 Snowy Plovers not far from the Godwits on TM.

Hi all -

I just wanted to let you know that June, July and August observations
spreadsheets are now available in the Files section of the SOS Yahoo Group site.

"Full-time" surveys started later this year, so there are a few less June
surveys than in previous years.  Joleen had to add a couple of missing surveys
for July, so the revised spreadsheets are now up.  And hot off the press: August
surveys!

Thanks, everyone!

Angela

Hi all -

Just a quick note on something that was brought to my attention.  Some of the
spreadsheets appear to only have "Visitor Use" information (e.g. dogs, people,
etc.)  However, the other "tab" in the document contains the bird data.  On the
bottom left of the screen, you'll see the label "Bird Detections."  If you click
on that, it should take you to the info you're looking for.  Conversely, if
you're interested in visitor use data from other surveys and didn't know it was
there... surprise!  The other spreadsheets also have two tabs for the different
types of observations.

Happy birding,

Angela

Tuesday, September 15 is our last daily survey day for Glass Beach, Virgin Creek
and Ten Mile Beach. Joleen will be picking up all completed data sheets at
Cowlick's Ice Cream Parlor on Wednesday.  If you haven't turned in all your
sheets, please drop them by the ice cream parlor by the end of the day Tuesday. 
This has been a wondrous year of activity, but the SOS data sheets are the heart
of our program.  Thank you for being the best team on the planet of the earth. 
Your observations are gold and they will contribute to our understanding and
knowledge of our wildlife.  THANK YOU.

Today is the last day of SOS Observations for TogetherGreen--the last day of
daily surveys on our three target beaches.  We'll start to write the final
report and begin to look at some of the numbers that we have worked so carefully
to compile.  Our final report will include data summary, goal evaluation, and
accounting.  We'll post it on this listserve in October.  We also will complete
a narrative report of the year's activities.  Since we are careful readers and
thoughtful observers, we'd very much like to share your observations of special
moments on the beaches this summer.  Toby, of course, found the Hudsonian
Godwits (rare, unusual, and spotted for the first time in Mendocino County). 
For me, I think it was the morning I stumbled down to Ten Mile Beach off the
Ward Avenue ramp and saw 26 Great Egrets emerge from the fog--all lined up at
the water's edge.  If you have stories or pictures you'd like to share, please
send them to Becky at casparbeck@...  We'll make them part of our
history.  Many thanks for all your good work.

On her SOS Ten Mile Survey this morning just after 9 a.m., Karen spotted a
Sandhill Crane--young bird with a lot of rusty coloring, near Ten Mile River. 
That's a first for the SOS list!  Wow.  Never a dull moment on these SOS
surveys. Zowie.

CR class 'Birds of the North Coast' spotted and identified a Pacific Golden
Plover on the main beach at Virgin Creek today, Oct 20th, about 11:30a.m.
It was mixed in among a group of approximately 50 Black-bellied Plovers!
Absolutely stunning in color..

We are putting the finishing touches on 2009.  Monthly surveys will continue
through May, 2010.  We hope to get back to daily surveys during June, 2010. 
Education and outreach will be on our minds this winter.  Chris Chavez, a
teacher who works closely with his students at Three Rivers Learning Center, has
several students assigned to shorebird science projects. Students survey Virgin
Creek and will be learning how to use California e-bird for their research.  Our
2009 director, Joleen Ossello, wrote a shorebird lesson plan for Junior Rangers
and jump-started our efforts to get all our data onto CA e-bird as well as this
list-serve.  Tony Eppstein will help us get data and photos up on a new SOS
website (coming soon).  We're entering our second year of providing community
service for people cited primarily for on-beach violations.  This has been a
successful outreach program that comes through the good enforcement work our
State Parks Rangers and the support of CA Superior Judge Lehan.  Violators can
work off fines by serving as shorebird survey volunteers. All our efforts have
been fully funded by generous grants in the last three years.  We are seeking
grants now for a 2010 director and funds to publish a children's book about Pink
Lady (illustrated by the children of Mendocino).  If you have thoughts, ideas,
or words of wisdom, please pass them along to Becky.  Many thanks to our
volunteers.  Without your help and hard work, SOS would never have happened. 
We'll keep you posted in the next few months about our progress and put up some
pictures from this summer/fall.  Thank you.  You are appreciated.

If you haven't birded lately at Glass Beach, it's worth a trip.  Tourists are
gone and the birds (and bugs) have retaken the beach and offshore rocks. 
Volunteer David and I saw some 30 Black Turnstones there yesterday as well as
several Black-bellied Plovers, Black Oystercatchers, and Surfbirds.  We also saw
several Black Phoebes and Yellow-rumped Warblers on the beach (many insects
about).  David spotted a Tropical Kingbird on the lone cypress tree just east of
the main beach and Toby Tobkin found a Rock Sandpiper later in the morning.

A few days ago, we found more than 60 Black-bellied Plovers at Virgin Creek
Beach and there currently are 32 Western Snowy Plovers up at Ten Mile Beach.

We'll keep the updates coming.

We've been surveying Glass Beach for the past two weeks and have seen a lot of
shorebird activity--large groups of Black-bellied Plovers, Turnstones and Surf
Birds.  Twice this week, we've seen a Peregrine Falcon--on the Western Gull
colony nesting site (bluffs just west of the GP property) and on top of the
seastack right next to the roosting rock near the main Glass Beach beach.  The
falcon was literally meters away from shorebirds on the rocks.  We got excellent
looks.

MENDOCINO DISTRICT

CHRISTMAS POT LUCK

DECEMBER 16, 2009        

12:30 – 2:00

RUSSIAN GULCH REC HALL

PLEASE BRING A DISH TO SHARE (SIDE-DISH, SALAD

OR DESSERT), YOUR OWN PLATE AND UTENSILS AND

A GIFT FOR THE GIFT EXCHANGE. GIFTS SHOULD BE

UNDER $10.00.

SUPERVISORS WILL PROVIDE THE MAIN COURSE

(THAT JON WILL BBQ) AND DRINKS

PLEASE BRING YOUR FAMILY!

We're learning how to work with our cameras and computers. And this means
learning something new every day. Check out the Favorite SOS Photos from 2009 in
photo albums.  More to come.  Happy Holidays everybody.

Happy New Year. Thank you so much for all your help and support in 2009.  We
look forward to 2010 when we begin our fourth year of SOS.  Our data is gold and
it wouldn't be possible without your good help and cheerful support.  Thank you!
Angela, Peggy and Becky walked Ten Mile Beach last Monday and saw some 38 Snowy
Plovers.  The surprises were a Say's Phoebe and more than 5 Western Meadowlawks
foraging on the beach.  Go figure....We've put up some of our favorite photos
from 2009.  Click on the photos section to the left and select the Favorite SOS
shots of 2009.

We wish you joy, health and happiiness and we send our heartfelt thanks for all
you do for us--and for the birds.

Thanks to Joleen Ossello, all SOS data for the last three years is up on Cornell
University's e-bird website (www.ebird.org).  It's easy to navigate through the
Mendocino County, CA data to watch our extraordinary progress (look for the
references to Mendocino SOS). And speaking of extraordinary, consider this: 
from our beginning in June, 2007 through January, 2010, SOS volunteers surveyed
2,268.25 hours in the field.  The conservative estimate for the miles hiked
during these shorebird surveys is 3,163.50.  If you were a shorebird
headquartered in Fort Bragg,CA 3,163.50 miles north would put you near Alert,
Nunavut Territory, Canada (as the crow......er Plover flies)or near San Jose,
Costa Rica if you flew south from Fort Bragg.  So we have just spent three years
hiking a distance that is about a 1/6th of the distance a shorebird flies
roundtrip every year.  This is humbling and gives us a new perspective on the
incredible journey these birds take every year.

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the AudubonSOS
group.

   File        : /SOS Charts 2010.pdf
   Uploaded by : bowen_becky <casparbeck@...>
   Description : SOS Data and Charts, 2010

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AudubonSOS/files/SOS%20Charts%202010.pdf

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/forms/general.htmlfiles

Regards,

bowen_becky <casparbeck@...>

We firmly believe the rain and wind will stop soon and we are ready to start
another summer of shorebird research.  The bad news is we have no funding for a
summer director.  The good news is we always knew there would be summers like
this and we've learned how to input and maintain our data.  So we are truly
volunteer-driven this summer.  We'll start posting schedules soon (just click on
the monthly calendar on this listserve). In the meantime, weekly Virgin Creek
surveys will start every Friday in May (starting May 7).  If you would like to
brush up on survey protocol or shorebird identification, please join us at 8:30
a.m. on Fridays in May at the trailhead to Virgin Creek just north of Three
Rivers Learning Center on the west side of Highway 1. There is a pull out there
and ample parking.  If Fridays are not good for you, please contact
casparbeck@... and we'll set something up.  Come prepared to climb over
tree limbs. The recent wind storms have brought down some branches on the trail.
Here's what we've been seeing lately at VC, GB and TM:  Scores of Black Brants,
the first Western Sandpipers, Semi-palmated Plovers, Killdeer, Sanderlings,
Yellowlegs sp., Snowy Plovers, Peregrine Falcons, Black Turnstones, Ruddy
Turnstones, Whimbrels, Black Oystercatchers, Harlequin Ducks, Surf Scoters and
more.  And the Osprey are back in town.  We are really looking forward to
starting year four of SOS and intend to make a long-term study.  We're looking
forward to seeing you all back on the beaches.  As always, thanks for all your
good work and support.

With luck, we have a survey at VC tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. Any rain or
strong wind cancels.  Meet at the trailhead of the Enchanted Trail just north of
Three Rivers Learning Center at the pullout on the west side of Highway 1.  If
the parking area is blocked by equipment, park at the surfer pullout further
south on Highway 1 and meet us at the estuary bridge.  If weather cancels, we'll
do this again next Friday, May 28, same time same place.  Thank you!  Becky B.
962-1602 (o.k. to call any time after 6 a.m.).