The mission of the Seminole Audubon Society is to promote awareness and protection of the plants and animals in the St. Johns River basin in order to sustain the beneficial coexistence of nature and humans. November - December 2014 A Publication of Seminole Audubon Society BIG SIT! Report The SAS team, Seminole Sitters, competed in the 19th annual Big SIT! on Sunday October 12 at Lake Jesup Park. The Big SIT! is a species count described by its sponsor, BirdWatcher’s Digest, as “Birding’s Most Sedentary Event.” Unlike most bird counts that involve traveling to various spots along a route or within an area, the Big SIT! is done from a 17’ circle. The 2014 Big Sit! consisted of 184 competing circles in 50 states and countries. Our team included sixteen birders this year. Many arrived before the sun, but not before the boaters. The location where we have erected the canopy in previous years was under water forcing us to adjust our location slightly. New species for our Big SIT! count included least bittern and purple gallinules. We were happy nearly as many species. to see American bitterns, king rails, our friendly limpkins, and painted buntings. Although many We had stiff competition this year with nine count of our regularly-seen species were absent this year, circles competing for the highest count in Florida. our final count was 53 species. We extend our The Celery Fields Forever team of Sarasota won the special thanks once again to Paul Hueber, without whose expertise we would not have tallied See BIG SIT! on page 13 The printing and mailing of this newsletter is made possible in part by the generous donations of Bob and Inez Parsell and ACE Hardware stores in Sanford, Longwood, Casselberry, and Oviedo. 2014-2015 Board of Directors & Committee Chairs 407-797-4636 [email protected] Leslie Martin Co-President [email protected] Marguerite Terwilleger Co-President [email protected] Peggy Stickney Vice President [email protected] Bettye Leidigh Treasurer [email protected] Shirley Reilly Secretary [email protected] DonnaLea Needham Conservation Co-Chair [email protected] Pam Meharg Conservation Co-Chair [email protected] Sarah Donlan Field Trips [email protected] Marty Shepherd Membership [email protected] Jim Denslow CLP Liaison [email protected] Publicity Bill Clapham Crystal Lake Preserve [email protected] Field Trips Boni Sivi Newsletter Editor [email protected] Corrinne Wertz Newsletter Distribution [email protected] Shirley Folse Education 407-797-4636 Sam Kendall Energy / MeetUp [email protected] Leslie Martin Shorebird Coordinator [email protected] Vacant Audubon Adventures Vacant Hospitality Vacant Historian NEW MEMBERS New Meeting Location: and Members NEW to our Chapter Seminole Audubon Meetings & Programs – Have a New Home! No longer at the library. Diane Calkins Deltona Seminole Audubon meetings and programs will be Pamela Cherry Sanford held at a new location starting with our November Elizabeth Dease Osteen 9th program on the Life of Birds. Jack Ferrell Deltona We want to thank First Presbyterian Church, Rebecca Herber DeBary Sanford, for allowing us to meet in their Fellowship A & L Jones Osteen Hall the second Sunday of each month through Edward LaPierre Deltona April 2015. The address is 320 S. Park Ave, Sanford. Roberta Matuska- The time is still 2 PM. The Seminole County North Mederer DeBary Branch library in Sanford is no longer open on Louise Speak Sanford Sundays. Carl Shilke Sanford Dorothy Staring Lake Mary Suzette Winstanley Lake Mary 2 to watch over them...A number of well-known ornithologists and members of the Association Birding visited Bradley at different times, and always found him alert and faithful in the performance of his duty, and willing to undergo any hardship to protect the birds. He took a personal interest in his work and was genuinely proud when he could report an Instruction increase in numbers. ...Personally he was gentle and somewhat retiring, was pure in thought and deed, deeply interested in and a supporter of the Our birding classes are held at the Ed small Union Church near his home. A young wife is Yarborough Nature Center in the Geneva left to mourn his sudden and terrible death, and his Wilderness Area, 3485 N. CR 426, Geneva, FL 32732. two children, too young to realize their loss, will Classes are offered in partnership with Seminole never know a father's care.” County Natural Lands, and instructed by Faith Jones and Shirley Folse. Information 407-797-4636 or Stuart McIver introduces the reader to the ordinary [email protected] young man Guy Bradley but by the time you turn the last page and close the cover you will have Backyard Birds met an extraordinary hero. Wednesday November 5th 2 – 4 pm The story takes place in the latter years of the This class will teach you a simple, but time-proven nineteenth century at the intersection of American method, of bird identification. We will focus on the Gilded Age consumerism and Progressive Era identity of birds that frequent our feeders and yards. idealism. McIver covers everything from weapons, $5.00 high fashion, ornithology and the origins of the Audubon Society to frontier living in Flamingo as 2015 Birding Basics Course well as a look at Florida politics. Tues. & Thurs. Jan. 13, 15, 20, and 22 1 -4 pm Weekends Jan. 10, 17, 18, and 24 9 am - noon The nascent conservation movement is interwoven with Bradley’s story as the American Ornithological Our 4-session beginning birding course for birders of Society is successful in getting the Florida legislature all ages will be offered afternoons and weekends in to pass a bill making the killing of birds other than January. Classes will be held at the Ed Yarborough game birds illegal. For the new conservation Nature Center in the Geneva Wilderness Area and regulations to be effective an enforcer was offered in partnership with Seminole Co. Natural required and in May 1902 Guy Bradley was offered Lands Program. The third class (Jan 18 or 20) will be the position, which he happily accepted. He was a field trip to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. deputized June 1902 in Key West with Florida Cost $30.00 Pre-registration required as space is Audubon underwriting his salary of thirty-five dollars limited. a month. McIver takes the reader on a journey of the Florida wilderness as well as pioneer living and spirit. Looking through the lens of today we can only shudder at the description of plume hunters raiding Top Shelf rookery after rookery, slaughtering the adults and leaving the chicks to starve. He also presents the Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy many facets of the primary environmental issue: Bradley, America's First Martyr to how to stop the slaughter of birds for the millinery Environmentalism by Stuart B.McIver trade. Plume hunting provided a fairly lucrative means of supporting a family in Flamingo as well as Guy M. Bradley’s obituary was published in the economic gain at every exchange of the appalling August 1905 issue of Bird Lore. commodity along the way, so it is easy to “The deceased acted as warden in Monroe understand why the new law was difficult to County, a wild and thinly settled district, for over enforce. three years... During all this time he faithfully guarded his wards, the plume birds, traveling He includes an amusing anecdote involving Mary thousands of miles in the launch Audubon, in order Munroe, wife of Kirk Munroe a founding vice 3 president of Florida Audubon Society. Mary was an ranger-guided field trip. Join us and get all your aggressive booster of the cause and when she saw questions answered about this remarkable bird! So, women wearing hats with plumes and stuffed birds for now Shirley Reilly, the answer is … we’ll get back she simply walked up and yanked their hats off. This to you on that one! Leslie Martin provoked much screaming as hats in those days were pinned to the wearers’ heads and many angry exchanges took place, but not many conversions to the plight of the birds. Some Good News The Plume Wars, family feuds and frontier Florida all provide a rich context to the Guy Bradley story Trails Closed to ORVs in Big Cypress of frontiersman and feather hunter turned game Preserve warden dying in the line of duty. His dying serves as Florida panthers and other wildlife in Big Cypress a reminder of the multifaceted issues surrounding Preserve will get a breather from the noise and any environmental cause. Guy M. Bradley was habitat damage from off-road vehicles as part of a definitely a martyr for environmentalism and truly settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity deserves to be remembered and honored. and other environmental groups. Secondary trails DonnaLea Needham will be closed to ORVs until Preserve biologists can make a full assessment of impacts to wildlife, sensitive waterways, and the “wild character” of Bird Bits the place. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/arti Do you have any questions about birds that you cles/2014/sun-sentinel-times-09-26-2014.html would like to have answered? Want to try to Samuel Kendall ‘stump’ the Board? Jot those questions down and email them to [email protected]. Millions of longleaf pines planted During the monthly meetings, SAS will answer as Funded by M.C. Davis and Sam Shine, 8 million many questions as we are able to, so send your longleaf pine seedlings have been planted on the inquiries our way! Nokuse Plantation in Northwest Florida. Since the Civil War, about 90 million acres of pines across the SAS had its debut Bird Bits presentation at the Southeast have been reduced to 3 million.