Posts Tagged ‘Conservation’
Monthly Program: Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-Luck Jay with author Julie Zickefoose
Naturalist/artist/writer Julie Zickefoose thinks of herself as an unsung, minor, rather dirty superhero. Her superpower— saving small, economically worthless wildlife that would otherwise perish. An orphaned jay named Jemima was one such foundling. Spending nearly a year healing, studying, and raising the young blue jay for release opened the door to their world for Julie.…
Read MoreThe Cuckoo in the Coal Mine
Yellow-billed Cuckoos (Coccyzus americanus) are fairly common in the eastern U.S. But in the last half-century, they have become rare in the West. Over the past 10 years in San Diego County, eBird shows unique sightings only 15 times—almost always a single bird in June or July, at Lake Henshaw, Lake Hodges, the Anza Borrego…
Read MoreEndangered Species Day- CANCELLED & POSTPONED FOR A FUTURE DATE
More info TBA
Read MoreLeConte’s Thrasher: A Desert Specialist on the Edge? – Monthly General Meeting
Living only in sandy washes and dunes in the Southwest, LeConte’s Thrasher is perhaps more specialized for life in the desert than any other bird of North America. Yet it faces serious conservation challenges. For decades, it was best known in California as a resident of the Coachella Valley. Few, if any, now survive there.…
Read MoreWorkshop: The Resilient California Native Garden
Join the California Native Plant Society-San Diego Chapter for a special day of speaker presentations from experts in the field of California native gardening. Their Garden Tour this past April presented numerous examples of long-established California native gardens and other gardens that were in-the-making. Whether you have been inspired to plant your first native garden…
Read MoreSaving America’s Wild Birds (David Younkman) – Monthly General Meeting
The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a leading bird conservation organization that works throughout the Western Hemisphere to protect rare and endangered bird species, conserve habitat, and address threats that affect all birds. Across the Americas, more than 500 native bird species are threatened with extinction — 12 percent of 4,230 species. In the United…
Read MoreYes on Y/SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources)
Measure Y (SOAR), a proposition on the November City of Oceanside ballot, simply requires that before agricultural, open space, or parkland can be rezoned to other uses such as dense housing or commercial, the people of Oceanside have a right to vote on the change. We all pay the costs of sprawl development – traffic…
Read MoreMonthly General Meeting – Tricolored Blackbirds
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. It was downhill from there. Glossy black with epaulets of red and white, the Tricolored Blackbird once abounded. In the 19th century, one author stated they were “the most abundant species in San Diego and Los Angeles counties.” Estimates set some colonies at more than a…
Read MoreAnnual Meeting & Film: The Messenger
2018 Annual Meeting and Election of Board of Directors will take place before the film. Su Rynard’s documentary The Messenger explores our deep-seated connection to birds and warns that the uncertain fate of songbirds might mirror our own. Moving from the northern reaches of the Boreal Forest to the base of Mount Ararat in…
Read MoreLearning from the Past, Fighting for the Future
In the early 1800s, the Passenger Pigeon held the distinction of the most abundant land bird in North America—perhaps in the world—with an estimated population of 3-5 billion individuals. (That’s billion. With a “b.”) Compare this figure to the present-day North American abundance champion, the Mourning Dove, with estimates ranging from 100-450 million. (With an…
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