In this issue:

• Upcoming Work Days
• Note from the President
• The Nominating Committee Wants YOU!
• International Motus Wood Thrush Project Update
• CAS partners with Rock Bridge Memorial SP for Urban Night Sky Place Certification
• Background on a Growing Issue at Gans Creek Recreational Area
• Note from the President
• Article with CAS Representing on the Big Business of Birding
• Upcoming Events

Mon. Feb. 2, 2026

Upcoming Work Days

by John Besser, Nature Areas Committee

Sun. Feb. 1, 2026

Note from the President

by Lottie Bushmann, President

Hi all

I hope this newsletter finds you well and enjoying this very winter weather we’ve been experiencing. I don’t know about your yard, but mine was quite busy with all the snow and cold, and the birds kept my feeders emptied. I’ve had a lone Common Grackle that has been hanging around the last few weeks. He came to the heated bird bath on one of the coldest days last week, and I saw what I thought was berry residue around his mouth. I momentarily wondered what berries he had found, before my camera was able to focus and get some snaps of him. Quite a handsome devil…he had obviously found a smaller bird to prey upon because the red “stuff” I thought was berries had some feather material mixed in. Nature is harsh. The birds do what they have to do. This will certainly merit some reading and a dive into what grackles eat. I continually find myself learning something new just about every time I take the time to watch the birds.  I hope you do too.

Join us this month as we celebrate owls! Mark Glenshaw will travel here from St Louis to do a program for us. You may have been to one of his other presentations. Rest assured, he always has a new topic to teach us about. I predict this one will not disappoint. Join us at the Boone Electric Building on Thursday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.

We’ve got some excellent field trips coming up as well. Hope you can join us for the Great Back Yard Bird Count on eBird, either by birding your yard, or by joining in on our field trip to see several backyards that day.  See the dates and details on our website. Birding with others has so many benefits…the list is longer, you might learn something you didn’t already know, and you might make a new friend. Join us!

Hope to see you soon!

Lottie Bushmann

Sun. Feb. 1, 2026

The Nominating Committee Wants YOU!

by Lottie Bushmann, President

Lottie Bushmann, CAS President, has appointed a Nominating Committee composed of Lisa Schenker who is chair, Nancy Bedan, and Bill Mees.  This committee is charged with recruiting individuals who will serve on the Board of Directors of Columbia Audubon Society.  The Board is composed of a President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer each serving a two year term.  Also serving on the board are at least three “at large” board members each serving staggered three year terms.

The Board meets monthly September – May with occasional special meetings called by the President as circumstances require.  Members of the Board must be a member of Columbia Audubon Society and have an interest in the ongoing activities of the Society as it endeavors to fulfill its mission:  To preserve the natural world and its ecosystems focusing on birds, other wildlife, and the earth’s biological diversity through education, environmental study and habitat restoration and protection.

The Nominating Committee is inviting members of Columbia Audubon Society with an interest in serving on the Board of Directors to please contact Lisa Schenker (lisaschenker107 at gmail.com) by February 20th.  Interested members can find the CAS bylaws on the website for information about the responsibilities of the various board positions. (https://www.columbia-audubon.org/columbia-audubon-society-bylaws/)

Thank you for considering this invitation to become a more active and involved CAS member.  The nominating committee will present a slate of nominees at the March 18th CAS membership meeting.

 

Sun. Feb. 1, 2026

International Motus Wood Thrush Project Update

by Sarah Kendrick, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Migratory Bird Biologist

CAS donated funds for the Motus tracking program as referenced in this article that was previously printed in the 2025 Missouri Natural Areas Newsletter. To see the article with images and other links, visit the original publication in the NA Newsletter in link above. 

In 2024, a multi-national group of bird-conservation partners across the hemisphere initiated a massive research project to track the survival and migration of Wood Thrush across the breeding and nonbreeding ranges. This effort occurred in 2024-2025 to target conservation efforts for the species – an important forest-breeding bird. (Fig 1)

Between May and July 2025, with Colombian bird-conservation organization SELVA, I coordinated over 60 partners to deploy over 990 Motus Wildlife Tracking System tags on Wood Thrush in 27 U.S. states and Ontario across the species’ breeding range. SELVA coordinated the tag deployment of over 140 more Motus tags in five countries of the species’ nonbreeding range this past winter, making our effort the largest Motus project to date.

The Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) is a medium-sized songbird of Eastern deciduous forests known for its flute-like, ethereal, ee-oh-lay song. The Wood Thrush is a long-distance Neotropical migrant, meaning it spends over half the year in tropical forest from Mexico to Panama. This thrush acts as a flagship species for full annual cycle conservation work in the Neotropics because they require a mid-elevation forest structure on nonbreeding grounds that is also needed by many other forest-breeding migratory songbirds. Full annual cycle conservation means working to identify and address threats that migratory birds face through all stages of their year, including breeding stage, migration stages, or nonbreeding stage.

With over 1,100 tags deployed on the species over its full range, we will better understand Wood Thrush migratory connections, routes, timing and survival across the full annual cycle to inform conservation action. The Wood Thrush is a priority species for conservation in 25 states and holds threatened status in Canada. Improving our understanding of the ecology of this species’ full annual cycle is essential to better understand conservation needs throughout its range and to improve the design of targeted habitat management actions. The hemispheric Motus-tagging research and conservation project will help us to better understand migratory connections, routes, timing and survival across their full annual cycle.

In spring 2023, I approached state wildlife agencies via the Nongame Bird Technical Sections of the Mississippi and Atlantic Flyway Councils to ask if they were interested in being part of a large-scale research study on Wood Thrush. The project goals were to tag the species with Motus tags across their breeding range in the eastern U.S., in partnership with SELVA, who would coordinate Motus-tagging in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The pitch was that, if states or organizations could commit the funds for 25 tags and coordinate the deployment of those tags on Wood Thrush in their state with permitted taggers, I would handle the coordination and logistics of the project, and we could do something at an unprecedented scale to learn a lot about the species together. To my surprise, many states and federal agencies and other organizations signed onto the project to participate! Mass planning commenced.

Our partner SELVA and I wrote a common (and required) project protocol to ensure that all project partners were using the same field methods, Motus tags, attachment harnesses and bird-handling permitting process.

The Motus tags deployed on Wood Thrush have batteries that last nearly 1.5 years, allowing us to gather up to three migratory seasons of data and allow us to examine inter-annual survival, which can be difficult to study in migratory species.

Many aspects of this project are providing us a positive proof of concept, including its scope and scale, and unique funding streams. A number of private, in-state funding streams are helping numerous states fund their project’s Motus tags or field work, making this massive project largely a grassroots-funded effort. Multiple birding groups in Missouri, including the Missouri Birding Society, Burroughs Audubon Society, Columbia Audubon Society and other private donors funded Missouri’s Motus tags and a Motus station for the project.

Data have been pouring in since May 2024 when tagging began. Field work wrapped up in summer 2025, but another year’s worth of data remains to be collected from nearly 500 Wood Thrush tagged this past summer across their breeding range. After that, we hope our project’s analysis will give us new insights into Wood Thrush survival and migration, allowing us to better deliver conservation for this iconic Eastern-forest bird.

Sun. Feb. 1, 2026

CAS partners with Rock Bridge Memorial SP for Urban Night Sky Place Certification

by Allison Vaughn, Communications Chair

In 2025 at the Daniel Boone Regional Library, CAS heard from Dr. Vayu Gokhale, a physics professor at Truman State University who is deeply involved in DarkSky Missouri, a voluntary effort to promote dark skies at night, not just for stargazing but also for human and wildlife health. He talked to us about the need for altering our lighting to promote safety while also preserving our night skies. Slides from his 2023 Missouri Bird Conservation Initiative Conference presentation can be found at mobci.net on the right panel of previous conference presentations. If you missed his talk at the library for CAS, this powerpoint presentation will give you a good rundown on what you need to know.

Also in 2025, a small committee of members of CAS met with the Missouri River Bird Observatory, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the City of Columbia’s Office of Sustainability to promote dark skies in Columbia. Some of you may have seen articles in various slick magazines that Columbia is promoting itself as a dark sky location, but in reality, to see celestial happenings like the Northern Lights or meteor showers, one must travel out to McBaine (the Bur Oak is a favorite location) or to even as far as Moberly. However, CAS is working to change that. This small subcommittee has partnered with Rock Bridge Memorial and Finger Lakes state parks as well as MRBO to secure Urban Night Sky Place designation for the two state parks. With the generous help of a Missouri Master Naturalist, Jarrett Whistance, who has been instrumental in taking Sky Quality Measurements to measure the night sky lights we’re close to submitting the preapplication for Rock Bridge Memorial SP. His readings indicate that Rock Bridge is well within the range of being designated as an Urban Night Sky Place, a designation that was bestowed upon Thousand Hills SP recently. Thousand Hills SP is in Kirksville, very close to Truman State University, had a lot of assistance from Vayu and others in the DarkSky Missouri community.

However, our DarkSky subcommittee for Rock Bridge Memorial SP will be focusing on this effort in 2026, filling out the preapplication and monitoring night lights at the park. It has been suggested to secure this designation for the park before we move to the City of Columbia, which already has a relatively progressive lighting plan to replace lights with appropriate Dark Sky certified specifications. To note, longtime member and inveterate birder Edge Wade’s husband Jerry Wade was instrumental in working on responsible lighting plans in the city before his untimely passing several years ago. Many of his ideas were adopted by the City of Columbia and planners have referenced his concepts during meetings with the CAS subcommittee.

As the subcommittee works to complete the preapplication, I wanted to let you know there is a lot that landowners can do to reduce light pollution that will help wildlife and human health. Conservation Chair Bill Mees has already made these changes. He lives in a neighborhood with many houses and he has changed his outdoor lights. The Dark Sky friendly lights are rated at 3000K or less. Bill and Jan replaced their outside bulbs rated as 2700K. This is something all of us can do right away. One can use the 5000K bulbs inside the house rather than outside. Every effort counts. Our subcommittee will be going to City Council or at least he Office of Sustainability in coming months to promote “lights out” during migration in May. To learn more about the DarkSky movement in Missouri, visit www.darksky.org. Columbia Audubon is proud to be a partner in this important movement.

Wed. Oct. 1, 2025

Background on a Growing Issue at Gans Creek Recreational Area

by David Diamond

Gans Creek Recreation Area Fact Sheet

1. Gans Creek Recreation Area shares a common border with Gans Creek Wild Area within Rock Bridge Memorial State Park. These public lands together form an important, core natural habitat that has been recognized by national and statewide organizations.  No other City Park land is so ecologically important based on connectivity and landscape context.
   1. The area is at the northeast edge of an Important Bird Area designated by the American Bird Conservancy and The Audubon Society.
   2. The area is within a Conservation Opportunity Area designated by Missouri Department of Conservation.
   3. Gans Creek is designated an Outstanding State Resource Water by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources immediately downstream within Gans Creek Wild Area.
2. The area contains natural features, including the creek, karst topography (cave and sinkholes), highly erodible soils, and steep slopes that are recognized as sensitive to development and disturbance by the City’s Natural Resource Inventory (2023) and Columbia Imagined (2013).
3. City plans in 2010 and 2018 included a 87.5-acre natural preservation area along Gans Creek and adjacent steep slopes, but these plans were ignored by the 2024 development plan.
4. Despite the area’s natural ecological significance and highly sensitive features, and in opposition to the City’s own 2010 and 2018 development plans, the City proposed a high density of mountain bike trails for development. Bike trails north of Gans Creek were approved for development in late 2024.  A trail south of Gans Creek was put on hold by the City Council due to advocacy of environmental groups.  That trail originally crossed Gans Creek, had switchbacks that crossed a steep upland drainage 4 times, and consisted of high density in sensitive uplands with karst features and highly erodible soils.
5. Mountain bike trail construction and use is inherently destructive to the environment compared to nature trail development, causing removal of native vegetation and increased levels of soil erosion and sedimentation of Gans Creek.
6. Development of mountain bike trails would effectively exclude other recreational users who favor a nature trail system due to competition between mountain bikers and hikers as has occurred in other communities with dual purpose trails.
7. Environmental groups propose to designate Gans Creek Nature Preserve (about 140 acres) within Gans Creek Recreation Area (about 320 acres) and limit development to uses that are compatible with the sensitive natural features, such as nature trails, and preserve and improve the core connectivity with Gans Creek Wild Area. Ecological restoration should be a focus of future management plans.

 

Tue. Apr. 1, 2025

Note from the President

by Lottie Bushmann

Spring has finally sprung!  I love seeing the daffodils and crocuses, along with all the buds on the trees. Bird activity has certainly picked up, and the migrants are continuing to drop in. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for another migratory season of confusing and exhilarating bird song. Every year it takes me a few times to remember the migrants from last spring, but every year it comes back a little quicker. Don’t be daunted—pull out your Merlin and start hunting. You’re sure to find a jewel among the branches.

I hope that you’ll plan to make CAS events a part of your spring. We have a very different April general meeting. It will be held at Ellis Library, adjacent to the Museum of Art and Archaeology, where Dr. Alicia Dissinger will talk to us about her research into bird imagery on ancient pottery. We can test our skills with a visit into the museum immediately after her talk. She will be here on campus for two talks, and you’re invited to both! Check out the details (including where to park) on our website and in this month’s Chat.

We have fabulous field trip birding opportunities available as well, and I hope you can join us for one or all of them. Nothing improves birding skills quite like hanging out with an expert that can zero you in on the important details to notice. It’s also a great way to meet like-minded folks and perhaps meet a new friend that you might enjoy birding with.

We had a fantastic March meeting, with Isaac Breuer sharing with us all the native plant work they have done at the A. L. Gustin golf course on the MU campus. Plans are in the works for an evening field trip to bird the golf course with Isaac. Watch the Chat next month for details.

You may have noticed a lot of emails from Audubon asking for volunteers to help with invasives control at Wild Haven. We have a young man working with us (using funds from a donation for this purpose) and more folks makes for greater coverage. Wild Haven is a jewel of a property and looking better by the day. Thanks to all who’ve participated, and I want to encourage you to check it out if you’re so inclined.

Happy Spring! Hope to see you on the trail!

 

Mon. Mar. 3, 2025

Article with CAS Representing on the Big Business of Birding

by Allison Vaughn

Here’s a nice article several CAS members contributed to last year on the economic impact of birding:

https://www.missouribusinessalert.com/industries/booming-birding-business-spurs-spending-encourages-conservation-in-missouri/article_921f6230-e8c8-11ef-a458-3314da13ea2f.html

Upcoming Events

RESCHEDULED: *Sunday* Afternoon Birding at Twin Lakes and Forum Nature Area

Sunday, February 8, 2026 | 2 PM

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Great Backyard Bird Count Feeder Crawl

Saturday, February 14, 2026 | 9 A.M. to 12 P.M.

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CANCELLED: February Weeknight Social

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

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February Membership Meeting: Mark Glenshaw, “Forest Park Owls: Mating, Nesting and Owlets”

February 26, 2026 | 7:00 PM

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First Friday Bird Hike: 3M Wetlands

Friday, March 6, 2026 | 8:00 AM

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Heron Rookery Count at Gans Creek Recreation Area

Sunday, March 15, 2026 | 8:00 AM

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First Friday Bird Hike: 3M Wetlands

Friday, April 3, 2026 | 8:00 AM

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