February 2021 Birding Observer Five Valleys Audubon Society, a Chapter of the National Audubon Society The Lives and Deaths of Northern Goshawks Northern Goshawks, which breed in the mountain forests in Southwestern Montana of southwestern Montana, focusing his investigations on their nesting habitats, as well as using radio telemetry to document their heretofore unrecognized use of valley Please join us on Monday, February 8th at 7:00 PM on habitats as preferred overwintering areas, in contrast to Zoom to hear Jack Kirkely present his talk entitled The their old growth forest breeding habitat. From 2014-18, Lives and Deaths of Northern Goshawks in Southwestern Jack opportunistically added the Great-tailed Grackle to Montana. Jack will summarize his quarter century of his studies, because that sub-tropical species had begun to research on goshawks which included radio telemetry expand its breeding range into Montana. He documented work to help shed some light on their year-around the first confirmed instances of nesting by this rare species movements as well as their summer habitat preferences in Montana, as well as the first DNA-proven case of its during the breeding season. You won’t want to miss the hybridization with the Common Grackle. short video segments that he shot from an observation blind showing some of the typical behaviors of adults Jack has served in leadership roles in local and statewide provisioning and protecting their nestlings. Audubon organizations, as well as being an activist for the Montana Wilderness Association's conservation issues. John S. "Jack" Kirkley is a professor of Biology at the He has received the Founders Award from the Montana University of Montana Western. He earned his bachelor’s Wilderness Association and the Lifetime Achievement degree in pre-professional zoology at Ohio Wesleyan Award from Montana Audubon. University in 1975 and his master’s and doctoral degrees in biology-ecology at Utah State University in 1985. He has In his retirement, Jack hopes to continue pursuing his now fulfilled a 36-year career as a biology professor at UM- research interests and his outreach and service to the Western in Dillon and plans to retire in June 2021. community as an emeritus professor who will maintain a connection with the institution to which he dedicated his As a scientist, Dr. Kirkley is an ornithologist who specializes entire career, The University of Montana Western. in the study of birds of prey. For more than a quarter century he has conducted his studies on the ecology of To Attend Jack Kirkley’s Goshawk Presentation, Time: February 8, 2021 at 6:45pm Mountain Time. To Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/93571127368 Meeting ID: 935 7112 7368 One tap mobile +16699006833,,93571127368# US (San Jose) +12532158782,,93571127368# US (Tacoma) Dial-in number from Montana: +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Or find your local dial-in number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kerE45fWQV Northern Goshawk Chapter Board Meetings An Endowment to Fund the Awards Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Five Valleys Audubon Professor Philip L. Wright died in 1997, and in 1998 the Society Board meetings will be conducted via Zoom. FVAS Board of Directors decided to establish an endowment in his name to provide ongoing funding for When: 1st Monday of the Month, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM the small research grants that had been funded year to Where: Zoom Meeting year from the FVAS operating budget. The goal was to raise Contact: To join, contact Andrea Stierle at $20,000 for the endowment, and to use the annual income [email protected] in advance. from that for the awards. We have succeeded beyond all expectations, and now, 22 years later, the Philip L. Wright Endowment amounts to $92,208 and we have awarded Philip L. Wright Memorial Research Awards $39, 969 to 65 students in grants of $150 to $1,200. Our By Bill Gabriel (in memoriam) management rules permit 4% of the year-end value to be used for research awards the following year. That will be In 1976 Professor Philip L. Wright gathered several U of M $3,688 for 2020. professors, students, and a few other birders to found the Five Valleys Audubon Society. Among the chapter’s goals A Request for Proposals (RFP) for 2021 has been was: “To promote research on wildlife and other natural distributed within U of M, proposals will be due near the resources.” Accordingly, in 1981 FVAS announced a end of March, and awards will be made early in April. program of Study Grant Awards that granted a total of $700 to 3 University of Montana graduate students. The And now The Pitch - If you would like to help this fund $700 came from the FVAS operating budget, and Jim grow, and support more student research, turn to the Brown remembers sitting on the Board and wondering if membership application near the end of this newsletter. such expenditures would bankrupt the chapter. The fourth item on the left is for “Philip L. Wright Fund.” Write in the amount of your contribution, put Philip L. In 1984 FVAS revised the Study Grant program, renamed Wright Fund on the memo line of your check, and send it it Field Biology Research Awards, announced the program to FVAS, P.O. Box 8425, Missoula, MT, 59807. in the chapter newsletter, and continued to fund awards from the annual budget. From 1984 through 1991 a total of $1,900 was awarded to 9 students. In 1992, that program was in turn replaced by the Philip L. Wright Research Award program. From 1992 through 1998, 12 students received awards totaling $3,641.50, all from the FVAS annual budget. Our Chapter has a Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/fvamissoula/posts/3616 180525096167 We welcome contributions. If you have local photos or bird-related content to share, please contact Jacob Glass, our Facebook Administrator at [email protected]. Because we cannot come together, I find these connections helpful and hope you will send your photos and content our way. Thanks for considering this, 2017 P.L. Wright Research Award Winner Cedar Mathers-Winn, who worked with UM professor Erick Greene on alarm calling networks Rose Leach. by birds and mammals. Cedar was later awarded a Tolle-Bekken Award for his innovative research. 2 Annual Chapter Meeting & Elections 2021 Montana Audubon Legislative Update Hello Chapter members, The 2021 legislative session has begun! Montana Audubon will lobby to protect birds, other wildlife, and their It was fun to see many of you—at habitats. As you may expect, the 2021 session is going to least virtually— on our Zoom be very different by allowing Montanans the ability to meeting in January, listening to testify without traveling to Helena. This has long been a the Great Blue Heron mapping goal of many legislative leaders, but that wish became a project. Thanks for tuning in! necessity with the pandemic and the need to limit the number of people in the Capitol. Montana Audubon’s Our annual meeting, which occurs in March, is when we lobbying team is prepared and ready to take on the State have our elections for Board of Directors and Officers. If Capitol remotely and help you too! We hope you’ll take you would like to join our Board, please contact one of our advantage of this new opportunity! nominating committee members - Andrea Stierle ([email protected]) or Edward Monnig We just delivered our first remote testimony this week, on ([email protected]) for details. Senate Bill 85, a bill that would double in some instances and quadruple in other instances, the taxes on wind Board member duties generally revolve around attending projects in Montana. We joined two dozen opponents, our monthly Board meetings (7-9 pm on the first Monday including many wind developers and industry experts in of the month from Sept through May, except in Sept when this opposition. Now that we have a flavor for remote we move it to the Tuesday to avoid Labor Day). We have testimony, we will be prepared to tackle the wildlife issues an engaged Board, so that tasks are usually evenly split coming our way. Later this month we'll start to hear bills among our members. about trapping, lethally removing grizzly bears, and a whole slew of changes to land use planning regulation and This coming year, we have enough Board members to subdivision development. We are definitely on defense! meet the minimums for our Bylaws, but we are not at our maximum number, so there are still openings if you would As usual, we are going to need your help! During the like to join. session, through April of this year, we will email regular “Action Alerts” to help guide you to your legislators to The terms for Secretary (Andrea) and President (me!) are submit comments on important committee hearings and also due to expire. Both of us have said that we would critical votes. Make sure you are signed up, and have your stand for re-election, but would welcome nominations of friends join too. It's easy! others to run. Again, please contact the nominating committee for details. Please head to our website to find more information on how to get involved. mtaudubon.org/conservation- We are planning to hold the vote via a Zoom meeting on policy/legislative-participation. our regular membership meeting time, so the 2nd Monday of March (8th), 7 pm. We need approximately 30 If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Amy members to attend to hold elections.