Do a Big Sit this spring - maybe replace a Big Day?

Do a "Big Sit" in addition to your usual Big Day(s) this spring, or maybe in place of one. Like many such activities, it can be used to raise some funds for a project your local bird club is working on...or you can think of your own reasons.

Want to learn the rules of a Big Sit? Go to this link.

A number of us will do one at the Urban Ecology Center one special weekend this May. Want to learn more? E-mail me at iltlawas@earthlink.net

Help stop migratory bird kills at communications towers

Help stop migratory bird kills at communications towers: go the American Bird Conservancy website to send a message to the FAA - here.

a new way forward

The "growth" model of economics has not worked. See an explanation from the Center for Advancement of the Steady State Economy at their website.

"There is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, including conservation of biodiversity, clean air and water, and atmospheric stability. This conflict is due to natural laws (thermodynamics and ecological structures) - it is simply a result of the way the world works. Mounting evidence of this conflict demonstrates the limits to growth."

An increasing number of economists and ecologists support this position. Go to the website linked above to get more information.

news from the Avian Knowledge Network

If you use eBird, you may already be aware of one of their partner organizations, the Avian Knowledge Network. See recent news from them, here.

For some background, see a paper describing what AKN attempts to do, here.

U.S. Climate Change Science program updates

To find recently-updated information from this federal climate science program, go to this link. A number of new reports posted as of January and March of this year are found there, including a climate report for citizens, Climate Literacy: "The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences".

follow-up on GBBC and more BirdSource projects

From Cornell and partner organizations:
2009 was another record year for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). Birders from across the United States and Canada submitted more than 93,629 checklists during the four-day event, a 9 percent increase in checklist submissions since 2008. Participants counted a record 11,550,200 individual birds representing 619 speciesincluding reports of the Sinaloa Wren, spotted north of the Mexican border for the first time. Xantus’s Murrelet and Pink-footed Shearwater were two new pelagic species seen offshore this year. Read more at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/

Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology are announcing My Yard eBird, a new online tool that allows you to keep track of the birds around your home all year. Go to http://ebird.org/content/myyard to find out more information.

Now that spring has (kind of) arrived, you can get involved in the NestWatch project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Participants monitor nests and nest boxes to help researchers learn when eggs are laid, when they hatch, and how many chicks fledge. It’s also being used to measure the impact of climate change and other factors on breeding birds. Go to http://www.NestWatch.org to learn more

Bird Education Network

BIRD EDUCATION NETWORK PRESENTATIONS The Bird Education Network (BEN) website now has presentations that were offered at the Second National Gathering for bird educators. This meeting took place in late February. The presentations can now be seen at: www.birdeducation.org/jekyllislandpresentations.htm

some basic online references

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Some online sites can serve as "portals" to a wide variety of information. One such site is worldchanging.com - find it here. It's the doorway to a lot of useful online resources.

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For those interested in basic climate science, go to the site of the IPCC - an updated link to the Synthesis Report pdf is here.