by Jim Gast

Board Position

There’s still time to nominate someone for the three-year board position. To nominate someone, make sure they are willing to serve and submit that person’s name to  Brooke Widmar at brookewidmar@gmail.com.  You can also self-nominate. Nominations are due by March 9th.

March Program

On March 17th, in place of our regular monthly meeting, Columbia Audubon is co-sponsoring a birding webinar with the Columbia Public Library. The Zoom program, “Intro to Birdwatching & Spring Bird Identification,” will begin at 7 p.m. and feature State Ornithologist Sarah Kendrick. Sarah will help participants identify birds by sight and sound and get ready to enjoy the spring migration season. Everyone, including CAS members, will need to register with the library to attend the webinar. Click on this link to register now: http://bit.ly/SpringBirdwatching. Many thanks to Sarah for presenting this program for our members as well as residents of mid-Missouri.

Speaking of the Library

Columbia Audubon members who live in Boone and Callaway Counties are blessed with a wonderful library system that allows users to access great resources for free.

Did you know people can access Kanopy which will allow them to watch the 24-lesson Birding in North America by Great Courses and National Geographic?  (Great Courses videos don’t count toward the month‘s 11 checkouts.) Perhaps you would rather watch a documentary on finding the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas.

You can also access Birdwatching Magazine by using RBDigital.

The Birdwatching Basics series is available on Hoopla as an eBook.

To access these resources, just click on the Download & Stream tab on the library’s homepage (www.dbrl.org). From the homepage, you can request the library purchase an item such as a book, DVD or CD by selecting Browse & Borrow tab and then Suggest for Purchase.

MOTUS tower update

Because of logistical problems at Bradford Farm, the MOTUS Tower will be placed on the radio antenna at the Waters-Moss area located near the intersection of Stadium and Old 63 South.

Cornell Tricky finches

If you need help telling House Finches from Purple Finches, you might try using the Tricky Finch Tip Sheet from Cornell.  Visit https://dl.allaboutbirds.org/tricky-finches–powered-by-ebird to get your copy. You will need to sign up for other Cornell emails to receive the tip sheet, but you can unsubscribe at any time.

February Meeting

If you missed Tim Barksdale’s talk on video graphing birds at the February meeting, you can watch it at https://youtu.be/LwI-Ku1M6Uk . There was a technical glitch showing the video on Ecuador, so that part is repeated near the end.

Eagle Bluffs Update

The entire area is open again. As always, vehicles need to remain on gravel roads and parking lots.