Everglade Kite Paton White Is the Newsletter of the Audubon September Finally Brought the Start of Both Fall Migration and Our Field Trips
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EVERGLADENEWSLETTER OF THE KITE AUDUBON SOCIETY OF THE EVERGLADES Serving Palm Beach County, Florida Volume 55, Number 2 November 2014 CALENDAR Monthly MEETING and LECTURE November 4 Wading Bird Science and Monitoring: The Cornerstone of Everglades Restoration Nov 1 Sat. 7:45 am STA 1E, Contact [email protected] or Linda 586-854- Mark Cook 0145 to register. PRE-REGISTRATION Join us Tuesday, November 4 at 7:00 p.m. (earlier meeting time this year) as Mark Cook, REQUIRED. PhD begins his 4-part Everglades Series with “Wading Bird Science and Monitoring: The Nov 7 Fri. 9 am Wakodahatchee Wetlands, Cornerstone of Everglades Restoration.” (Check ASE web site for his Nov 9, Dec 6, and Delray Beach, 13206 Jog Road. Meet at top of March 14 field trips/lectures that complete this series.) boardwalk (Dorothy Brindle) Nov 8 Sat. 7:30 a.m. Tropical Audubon invites Dr. Mark Cook is Lead Scientist for the Everglades Systems Assessment Section of the South you to Everglades National Park. Leader: Florida Water Management District where his research focuses on wading birds, with a John Boyd. Details in Kite and website. Entry particular focus on how wetland processes such as water levels and nutrient run-off affect fee per car. Meet in parking lot at Coe Visitor wading bird foraging and reproductive success. This research will help restore and manage Center wading bird populations in the Everglades. Mark has studied the ecology of wild birds Nov 8 Sat. 8 am Loxahatchee River District, Jupiter, 2500 Jupiter Park Drive (Jim Howe) for over 20 years, including as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Nov 9 Sun. 3:30 pm ARM Loxahatchee NWR Berkeley studying nesting strategies of a Neotropical passerine, the Pearly-eyed thrasher, in Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape the rainforests of Puerto Rico. He has spent the past ten years studying wading birds in south Assessment (LILA): “Getting the Water Right Florida, where he has authored and co-authored 22 peer-reviewed scientific publications in the Everglades” & Bird FLY-IN (Mark Cook) and 20-plus professional reports on birds, fishes, crayfish and exotic animal species. He is Meet at Boat Launch parking area. the chief editor of the South Florida Wading Bird Report, collaborating with other wading Nov 12 Wed. DEADLINE for Airfare & Deposit bird scientists in south Florida, including those from Audubon Florida. He has a PhD in for March Panama Trip Contact Claudine Avian Ecology from Glasgow University, Scotland, and a Master’s Degree in Ecology from Laabs 561-655-9779 the University of Durham, England, where he studied, respectively, the nesting behavior of Nov 13 Thur. “2nd Thursday Leader’s Choice”. See Facebook, Yahoo groups or ASE website nesting Black Guillemots and Atlantic Puffins on remote Scottish islands. His Bachelor of 48 hrs before for details. Science is in Marine Zoology from the University of Bangor, Wales. Nov 15 Sat. Green Cay Wetlands Migration Join us for this entertaining and educational program in the gallery, right before our regular Day Festival, Boynton Beach, 12800 Hagen rooms 101 and 102 at FAU Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, 6301 Summit Blvd, Ranch Road. Meet outside Nature Center main door. Call Debbie to volunteer 561-779- (near Jog Road) in West Palm Beach. Refreshments at 6:30 pm. Meeting is free and open 3736 to the public. Nov 15 Sat. 8 am Riverbend “Bike & Birds”, Jupiter, 9060 Indiantown Rd. Bike trips meet Bird of the Month for November: Northern Shoveler in parking lot in front of bike rental trailer November’s bird of the month is another duck in the subfamily Anatinae, Anas clypeata. (Vicki Rogerson/Linda Humphries) The ducks in this subfamily are all dabbling ducks or “puddle ducks”; the diving ducks Nov 16 Sun. 7 am STA 1E, Contact asetripinfo@ gmail.com or Linda 561-742-7791 to register. are in the subfamily Aythyinae (your ring-necked, scaup, etc., are all in the genus Aythya). PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Ducks in the genus Anas are the prototypical duck: it’s the Latin word for duck! Clypeata Nov 18 Tues. 4:00 pm Wakodahatchee means “furnished with a shield” which, depending on your source refers to the “shield- Wetlands, BEGINNERS Walk. Meet as above shaped” bill or possibly the red patches on the sides of the male. Whatever the translation (Paton White) of the Latin name, though, the large shovel-shaped bill (the previous genus for this duck Nov 21 Fri. 10:30 am “Birds & Lunch at South was Spatula clypeata) is easy to recognize, even at a distance. That, along with its nearly Cove Natural Area,” Downtown West Palm worldwide distribution makes it, as Bent wrote back in 1951, “one of the best known Beach. Meet at entrance to boardwalk, north of the Royal Park Bridge and adjacent to and the most widely distributed ducks in the Flagler Drive (Paton White/Linda Humphries) world.” See website for more details. Northern Shoveler is an expected (but listed as Nov 22 Sat. 8:30 am John D MacArthur Park, “Birds & Mangrove Ecology” North Palm “uncommon” on our bird list) winter resident Beach, 10900 FL A1A (Jack Nicklaus Blvd) in Palm Beach County, “seen each year but Meet at Nature Center. $4/$5 single/multiple not expected on most field trips.” Despite its occupancy car entry fee (Clive Pinnock) rather large bill, black in the drake and yellow Nov 23 Sun. 3:30 pm Wakodahatchee in the hen, this is still only a medium-sized Wetlands. Meet as above (Valleri Brauer) duck (average length 19”; Mallard is 24”). Nov 29 Sat. 8 am Green Cay Wetlands, Boynton Beach, 12800 Hagen Ranch Road. Come to our November meeting to hear more Meet outside Nature Center main door. (Ben about this distinctive winter resident of our Kolstad) marshes and STAs. Northern Shoveler drake & hen. Photo by Susan McKemy President’s Column The Everglade Kite Paton White is the newsletter of the Audubon September finally brought the start of both fall migration and our field trips. And best of all, Society of the Everglades, published our northern friends will be returning soon, too. 10 times a year. September was also a very busy month on the conservation front. The Ag Reserve issue President 561-818-7574 that Pam and Russ Martens wrote a great article about in the October Kite, had its all-day Paton White [email protected] Roundtable on September 29. I am proud to report that ASE had eleven members there to support Russ, who had one of the seats at the table. Most of our members were able to spend 1st Vice President 742-7791 the whole day and spoke out for holding the line in the Ag Reserve. The only real consensus Linda Humphries [email protected] that came out of the day was that we need to find a way for agriculture to succeed in the 2nd Vice President 644-8830 Reserve. We look forward to hearing from the Inspector General on ASE’s request for an Susan McKemy [email protected] investigation of how GL Homes has been able to expand its residential developments by as much as 70 percent without public comment and with questionable transfer of development Secretary 498-0996 rights. Currently, another Roundtable is anticipated before the matter goes before the Board of Alan Parmalee [email protected] County Commissioners in March of next year. It will be very important for ASE members to Treasurer 689-2530 attend both the Roundtable and the Commissioners’ vote; I’ll be sure to give everyone ample Janet Schreiber [email protected] notice when the dates are firmed up. Corresponding Sec’y 379-9465 We also signed on to several letters with the Everglades Coalition. This is a group of 55 Judy Munro [email protected] environmentally friendly organizations that ASE belongs to. Go to our conservation section on the website and follow what your chapter is doing. We will also be joining the Climate Field Trips 385-9787 (M-F AFTER 5:30 pm) Action Coalition (CAC) this month. This group both follows and initiates action with the Valleri Brauer [email protected] governmental agencies in PB County that have signed onto the South Florida Regional Climate Membership 969-7567 Change Compact. This four-county coalition’s goal is to pioneer climate resiliency through Gail Tomei [email protected] regional action. Bird ID 233-1400 In late September ASE wrote a letter to advocate prevention of building a town, Sugar Hill, Clive Pinnock [email protected] consisting of over 43,000 acres that would allow up to 18,000 homes and 25 million square Library 601-8007 feet of commercial space in Everglades restoration land in Hendry County. A week later, Anne Hoctor [email protected] SFWMD surprisingly recommended AGAINST the development project as detrimental to Everglades Restoration! Quick, forceful action by the conservation community helped create Conservation 965-2420 this outcome. Rosa (Cissie) Durando Please help ASE’s conservation effort. We need several people willing to attend one or two Education 627-7829 meetings a month. Just tell me you are interested, you don’t need a conservation background, Susan Snyder [email protected] just an interest. We are all learning together! Outreach 779-3736 Debbie Smith [email protected] Audubon Faces Climate Change: Volunteers Needed Publicity 629-7516 NAS released their Climate Initiative on September 9 with the launch of “Audubon’s Birds Sheila Elliot [email protected] and Climate Change Report.” Check out www.climate.audubon.org to see birds in your area threatened by global warming, download maps, and read FAQ about the research. At Large ASE NEEDS VOLUNTEER(S) WHO WOULD LIKE TO HELP THE CAUSE.