Welcome, , to Tucson Audubon's weekly update.

We face many challenges in life. Let's take time to celebrate! We hope you can make it to the Birdathon Wrap-up Party. You can also celebrate simply by spending time outdoors being mindful of wildlife--colors, sounds, behaviors!

There are many opportunities below for involvement and celebration. Please join in. 

Kendall Kroesen, e-News editor, 520-209-1806

Celebrate Birdathon Success Tonight!

Tucson Audubon will provide hors d'oeuvres; additional food and drinks will be available for you to purchase during the restaurant's Happy Hour.

If you raised $50 or more, you will receive a Birdathon t-shirt!

PRIZES, including high-end binoculars, will be awarded to Birdathoners in the  "Traditional" category for a variety of categories including: a grand prize, most species seen, most funds raised, youngest birder.

ADDITIONAL PRIZES will be awarded to Traditional and Non-traditional Birdathoners alike, if you record a Black-bellied Whistling Duck, a Greater Roadrunner, and/or an Elf Owl during your Birdathon.

RSVP here

Sign Up Now for Pre- and Post-Festival Field Trips

Did you know the Southeast Arizona Birding Festival has birding trips to locations in Mexico, the Chiricahuas and the White Mountains? Check out the offerings from Solipaso Tours and Borderlands Tours, there are spaces available! Both companies are generously donating a portion of the registration fee to Tucson Audubon to help us continue protecting birds and habitat in the region. Learn about the trips below or find the details here.

SOLIPASO PRE TRIP
Madera: A short trip for Sierra Madre endemics
August 7-10, 2016; $1200 per person ($220 single supplement)
This short but very special trip into the states of Sonora and Chihuahua is offered mainly to see the target species of the highly endemic Thick-billed Parrot and Eared Quetzal.

SOLIPASO POST TRIP
Northwest Mexico: Madera, Basaseachic Falls & Yecora
August 15-22, 2016; $2650 per person ($550 single supplement)
This trip focuses on the endemic birds of the little-traveled northern Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range, both in Chihauhua and Sonora.

BORDERLAND TOURS PRE TRIP
Bird Communities of the Sky Islands
August 7-9, 2016; $795/per person
Most of our time will be spent in the Chiricahua Mountains, the largest and most biologically diverse of the isolated sierras locally known as "Sky Islands." Drawing species from six North American bio-geographical regions—three with their locus in Mexico—and spanning five of C. Hart Merriam's life zones, the Chiricahuas are a living laboratory that supports most of the birds found in the American Southwest.

BORDERLAND TOURS POST TRIP
Alpine Arizona: White Mountains
August 15-19, 2016; $1595/per person
The White Mountains essentially comprise the southernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains in Arizona.  About 150 species can be observed on this alpine addendum, including Dusky Grouse, American Three-toed Woodpecker, Gray Jay, and Clark's Nutcracker.

FIND ALL THE DETAILS

Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities

Bluebird Monitors Needed
Tucson Audubon has been chosen to be part of a larger study from National Audubon to monitor bluebirds with point count surveys. This is a nation wide effort to track bluebirds and test the climate change models that National Audubon released a few years ago that made national news. Volunteers will adopt a route of twelve point counts (5-minute stationary surveys) and record all species they detect with an emphasis on bluebirds twice a year. Data will be entered using eBird.org. Image by Lois Manowitz.

If you are interested in helping please email Jennie at jmacfarland@tucsonaudubon.org

Volunteer at the 2016 Southeast Arizona Birding Festival
If you volunteered for last year’s festival and would like to do so again, great! Those who enjoyed their roles during last year’s event will be offered those same assignments this year. If you did not volunteer last year and are interested in doing so this year, please do! Generally speaking there are two main categories of volunteers:

• Volunteer roles leading up to the festival
• Onsite volunteers
  

It takes many dedicated volunteers to execute a four day birding extravaganza—more than 80 people helped last year. You may help with setup and take down, greeting visitors, vendor fair liaisons, food preparation, or provide support for activities and field trips--to name just a few areas.

Please contact Volunteer Coordinator, Josh Barron (209-1811), for more information or to sign up as a volunteer!

Survey for Trogons in the Sky Islands
Volunteers still needed this month. To further understand how many Elegant Trogons there are in the US, organized surveys happen every year in six of the region's Sky Islands.

• Santa Rita Mountains – May 21 Saturday
• Patagonia Mountains – May 22 Sunday
• Huachuca Mountains – May 28 Saturday
• Chiricahua Mountains – May 29 Sunday
• Galiuro Mountains – June 3 - 5
  

Do You eBird? Arizona IBA Program Needs Your Checklists

If you have birded in an Important Bird Area in Arizona and entered your sightings into eBird.org, please share your lists with username ArizonaIBA (no space!) to help us monitor these areas. The complete list of all IBAs in Arizona is available at www.aziba.org.

Tucson Audubon Free Birding Field Trips

More info on all our birding trips can be found at tucsonaudubon.org/fieldtrips.

Protect Open Space and Wise Land Use Planning

In the Arizona legislature SB1306 has passed the House and is now on Governor Ducey’s desk for a final decision. SB1306 would limit counties' authority to collect impact fees from developers to fund critical regional parks and open space. For example, this law could impede implementation of Pima County’s Multi-species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSCP), which mitigates for loss of endangered species habitat as Pima County grows. Pima County’s MSCP enjoys broad support because it provides a blueprint for conservation while ensuring regulatory certainty and economic prosperity. Impact fees are a key tool enabling counties to balance development and conservation. Open space contributes significantly to local economies and a high quality of life.

TAKE ACTION!

Contact Governor Ducey today and encourage him to veto SB1306. Call 602-542-4331 or email him at this address.

Also thank Governor Ducey for recently vetoing SB1400, SB1268 and HB2568, which we opposed. Tell Ducey to add SB1306 to this list of unworthy bills! 

Conservation News
Study: Large Benson development could harm St. David Cienega
The study found that in three of five tested scenarios—which vary by river-water levels and potential variations in underground geology—well pumping at the huge proposed Vigneto development lowers the water table beneath the St. David Cienega by between 0.8 feet to 1.5 feet within 100 years.

That means Vigneto will most likely infringe on federal water rights protecting the San Pedro conservation area, said Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center of Biological Diversity. “At this point, this is now the state-of-the-art, best available science,” he said.

Read the full AZ Daily Star article

My First Bird Book and Bird Feeder

Learn more about our shops and get directions

—Tucson Audubon Staff
(image by Angela Pritchard)