September 2017 Yellowbill

01 Sep September 2017 Yellowbill

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President’s Message

Welcome everyone to our 2017-2018 season. We have been hard at work over the summer on organizing field trips. Thanks to Susan Estep for the Wednesday Walks and Kevin Enns-Rempel for the Saturday field trips. We also have a new website (with our marketing partner Greg McKinney of McKinney Strategic) that includes a subscribable calendar for the first time. Visit it at fresnoaudubon.org. Once you subscribe you will see all of our events in your own calendar. The calendar includes details of the event, contact details and a map to the meeting place. The new site will soon have an online store to make it easy to purchase logo gear and Tricolored Blackbird pins. You can choose to have the purchase delivered for a fee or pick it up at no charge a Member Meeting.

September brings migration, and it is also time for your membership renewal. You may renew online on our website here. If you choose to renew by mail you can download a membership form here. Please use our new mailing address:

Fresno Audubon Society
PO Box 3315
Pinedale, CA 93650

Our first field trip of the season will be a Saturday trip he Fresno Wastewater Treatment Plant on the 9th of September, which we will also visit on Wednesday the 27th. The first Wednesday trip will be to Shaver Lake on the 13th.

We are excited to have Lynn Hemink speaking at our first Member Meeting on birds and other wildlife of Africa. Lynn is a world-class birder who has not spoken to us in many years; you won’t want to miss it.

For those interested in what other Audubon chapters in our region are up to, FAS will be hosting the Central Valley & Sierra Council meeting at UC Merced 20-21 October. A field trip to Merced National Wildlife Refuge will be part of the event. If you want to participate, please contact Robert Snow at rsnow@fresnoaudubon.org.

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September Meeting
Wildlife of Africa
with Lynn Hemink
12 September 2017
UC Center

Come join the first meeting on the 2017-18 schedule of the Fresno Audubon Society on September 12 as we view a safari of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa through the eyes of our own Lynn Hemink and his wife, Ellen. There won’t be a slide of a city anywhere! Just the sheer beauty of wildlife and their territory up close.

Lynn is a Past President of FAS and has been very interested in birds for almost his entire life.  There will probably be more pictures of the animals than there are of the birds.  Let’s see if he can do it!

We hope to see you on September 12 at 7:00 at UC Center, 550 W Shaw Ave, Fresno, CA 93710.

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Squacco Heron & Cheetah by Lynn Heminck

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Field Trips

Our field trip schedules are coming together thanks to the hard work of Kevin Enns-Remple (Saturday field trips) and Susan Estep (Wednesday Walks). A pdf schedule of the trips as they now stand will be sent out by eblast. The list still has a few holes in it, mostly missing trip leaders, but September is finalized. Our new website has a great calendar that allows you to see all the details of an upcoming trip as they become finalized. Included in the details is a map showing the meeting point for the trip. The calendar is subscribable, which allows you to integrate it into whatever electronic calendar you use. Updates to events will appear as they are made. We encourage you to subscribe.

September Field Trips

Saturday 9 September 2017 – Wastewater Treatment Plant with Penny Stewart

godwit-marbled5768Marbled Godwit by Gary Woods

Join us for the first field trip of the Fresno Audubon Society’s 2017-2018 season on Saturday 9 September 2017. We will be visiting the Fresno Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP), which means you must tell the leader Penny Stewart in advance that you will attend. The group will meet at the Walmart parking lot at the corner of Ashlan and Blackstone at 6:45 for a 7:00 am departure to the WTP. With migration beginning we expect to see plenty of shorebirds and other migrants and perhaps the resident Peregrine Falcons.

Please let Penny know by Thursday morning, the 7th of September. You can call and leave a message at 559-224-9403, or e-mail at flamowl@att.net. You will need your driver’s license, and to sign a liability waiver for the waste water plant as well as one for Fresno Audubon. Some of you are requesting to meet at the plant. That will be fine. Penny suggests you get to the main entrance a little after 7:00 am. While you are waiting, please go ahead and sign the WTP waiver with the guard.

Checklist: ID, binoculars, water, sun protection and lunch.

Leader Penny Stewart (559) 224-9403.

Wednesday 13 September 2017 – Shaver Lake with Larry Parmeter

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Black-throated Gray Warbler by Gary Woods

We will meet at the Riverpark Shopping Center in front of Target at 7:45 am for an 8:00 am departure. We will carpool up to Shaver Lake. The secondary meeting point will be the entrance to Camp Edison just beyond the town of Shaver Lake. We will bird the Camp Edison area, then go to Dinky Creek Meadows (also called Swanson Meadows or Chawankee Meadows) and return to Fresno around 4:00 pm.

We expect to see mountain birds, including White-headed Woodpecker, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Chipping Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, Brown Creeper, Dusky and Hammond’s Flycatcher, and possibly Pileated Woodpecker. We may also see migrating birds, including warblers, tanagers, and flycatchers.

Trip Leader – Larry Parmeter (559) 276-8753 or lwparmeter@aol.com.

Checklist: binoculars, bird ID guide, sun protection, lunch.

Wednesday 27 September 2017 – Wastewater Treatment Plant with Robert Snow

willet6095Willet by Gary Woods

The Wednesday Walkers will visit the Fresno Wastewater Treatment Plant. The group will meet at the Walmart parking lot at the corner of Ashlan and Blackstone at 7:45 for an 8:00 am departure to the WTP. With migration beginning we expect to see plenty of shorebirds and other migrants and perhaps the resident Peregrine Falcons. After visiting the ponds we will move to Kearny Park for lunch and hopefully Yellow-billed Magpies!

Please let Susan Estep know by Monday morning, the 25th of September if you plan to attend. You can call and leave a message at (402) 212-1215, or e-mail at estepmail@yahoo.com. You will need your driver’s license, and to sign a liability waiver for the waste water plant as well as one for Fresno Audubon. Some of you are requesting to meet at the plant. That will be fine. Robert suggests you get to the main entrance a little after 8:00 am. While you are waiting, please go ahead and sign the WTP waiver with the guard.

Checklist: ID, binoculars, water, sun protection and lunch.

Leader Robert Snow (650) 483-2347.

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FRESNO-MADERA BIRDS
by Jeff Davis
photos by Gary Woods except where noted
Including reports for the period of
April 16 to August 15, 2017

 

The Ross’s Goose discovered at Woodward Park in December 2016 remained through at least May 17 (ph. JD).

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Ross’s Goose by Jeff Davis

Scarce in summer, two to three Ring-necked Ducks summered along the Madera Canal (ph. RS). Fresno

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Ring-necked Duck

County’s first Common Ground-Dove was a less-than-one-day wonder at Flum Ditch in Biola August 2 (ph.

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Common Ground-Dove

GW). Madera County’s first White-winged Dove, on private property south of Madera, remained longer, April

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White-winged Dove

25-27 (ph. CS). Our first Semipalmated Sandpipers of the season were singles at Fresno WTP July 8 and July

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Semipalmated Sandpiper

15 (GW, JS). Better-than-average coverage at Devils Postpile National Monument yielded interesting discoveries, including that of a Wilson’s Snipe at a marsh there 1 August (CR), which provided the first evidence of possible

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Wilson’s Snipe

breeding in Madera County. A Solitary Sandpiper at Madera WTP August 14 (ph. AS) was a good find away

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Solitary Sandpiper

from Hwy 41 and Rd 208, where an individual has spent the past three winters. A Willet at Fresno WTP August

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Willet

2 (RS, GF) and two there July 20 (ph. GW) rounded out our rare shorebirds. A Swainson’s Hawk juvenile at

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Swainson’s Hawk

Ball Ranch August 11 (ph. MB, CC) indicated successful nesting there for the second consecutive year; there are very few nesting records along the San Joaquin River east of Hwy 99. Our first transient Willow Flycatcher of

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Willow Flycatcher

the season was in a northeast Fresno yard August 4 (ph. JD). Another interesting discovering at Devils Postpile National Monument was that of three Vesper Sparrows singing from shrubby willows at a meadow July 21

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Vesper Sparrow

(DB). As with the Wilson’s Snipe observation (above), this observation represents the first evidence of possible breeding in Madera County. An Ovenbird at Fresno Chaffee Zoo May 29 (ph. MC) established Fresno County’s

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Ovenbird

second record and first for spring. Prolonged flooding at Dry Creek Reservoir evidently provided the right weedy conditions for Blue Grosbeaks. Although previously undocumented at that location and scarce on the eastern

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Blue Grossbeak

edge of the valley in our area in general, they presumably bred there, and at least two remained through August 9 (m.ob., ph. RS).

Cited Observers: David Bellamy, Micki Beston, Mike Cong, Clary Creager, Jeff Davis, George Folsom, Connor Rosenblatt, Rick Saxton, Jeff Seay, Cecelia Sheeter, Alex Single, Jim Tietz, Gary Woods. m.ob. = many observers, ph. = photographed by, WTP = wastewater treatment plant.

If you make an interesting observation, we’d love to hear about it. We are especially interested in birds listed as casual or rare on the Fresno Audubon checklist and those found out of season, out of normal habitat, or in unusually large numbers. Please submit reports to Jeff Davis ((559) 246-3272, jndavis@ucsc.edu), the Fresno County Birders e-mail list, or eBird.

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