Pasadena Audubon Society

About Our Meetings: General and Special

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General Meetings
Held the third Wednesday of each month except June, July, August, and December at 7:00 pm for social time and 7:30 pm for the program at Eaton Canyon Nature Center, 1750 North Altadena Drive, Pasadena.

Directions to Eaton Canyon

Current Program

Adding Depth to Your Birding
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Jon Fisher and Mickey Long

You would like to find a Clay-colored Sparrow but you don't know where to look. Even if you did know their preferred habitat, could you distinguish it from a Chipping Sparrow or a Brewer's Sparrow? Oh, it's mid-September, the middle of Autumn migration, and the alternate plumages are fast disappearing, plus there is an influx of juvenile birds.

Don't Fear! "Adding Depth To Your Birding" will go beyond just pure identification. It will cover habitats, seasonality and the subtle timing of migrants, as well as where to look for specific species. Come hone your ID skills!

Upcoming Programs

What Audubon is Doing in Sacramento
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Dan Taylor

Though never glamorous and often underappreciated, fighting in Sacramento for preservation and improvement of habitat and environmentally friendly ways to direct California's future growth is one of the most important things that can be done to ensure a bird-friendly future for our state.

Spanning a more than 30 year career with Audubon, Dan Taylor has been the organization's face for many of its important environmental victories in the West. He has defended old growth forests from clear cutting, helped bring attention to the plight of the Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet, and was at the heart of National Audubon's campaign to save Mono Lake by stopping decades of harmful water diversion.

25 Years of Birding in the Western Antelope Valley
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Dr. Callyn Yorke

Join us to listen to Callyn give an in-depth history on seasonal occurrences and abundances of birds in the Antelope Valley. He has been a professor of biology at Antelope Valley College since 1984. As most of you know, the Antelope Valley provides a great diversity of species and numbers of birds throughout the year and often provides some great rarities for Los Angeles County. What better way to put it all into perspective than to have him share his observations for the past 25 years. Talk about list-keeping!

Special Events

The Wrentit Club
All year

Pasadena Audubon Society is promoting eBird and the new "Wrentit Club". The idea is simple: Identify as many species of bird in Los Angeles County for the calendar year 2010 as you can. Then, submit your year-list to WrentitClub@PasadenaAudubon.org. Sound easy so far?

After all the lists are submitted, we will tally and award the following:

  • 50-99    The Finches
  • 100-140 The Rails
  • 150-199 The Vireos
  • 200-249 The Owls
  • 250+     The Wrentit Club

We will list your total award on a perpetual list/board.

Feel daunted? Don't! Our field trips will indicate if they count towards your Wrentit Club total (look for the "WC" icon!) and you are invited to contact John Garrett, Mark Scheel, or Ron Cyger for tips and recommendations.

So, beginning January 1, 2010, begin tallying! Use of eBird is not required. But, if you use eBird ( www.eBird.org ) enter your bird lists, it will automatically generate your year list for LA County, help researchers study population trends, and gain you brownie points.

Ron Cyger, John Garrett, and Mark Scheel

So, you want to get involved in the Wrentit Club, but are not sure how to get started with eBird?

  • Tip #1: Create an eBird account

  • Tip #2 Submit a checklist of birds

  • Tip #3: Casual Observation and effort

    When do I use "Casual Observation" as opposed to the other options?

    Letting us know how you went birding is an important part of completing the data entry process. By filling out simple effort information we can learn more about the presence of birds in your area. For example, if you simply choose "Casual Observation" when in fact you did something more rigorous, we won't know because you are not required to fill out the effort information. You might have seen a Bald Eagle fly over your car on the way to work in the morning, which is truly a casual observation. This is valuable information. It tells us that a species was at a location on a specific date. On the other hand you might have seen a Bald Eagle while birding for an hour at your local refuge and you might have reported all the species you observed, but still selected "Casual Observation" as the methodology. By submitting a complete checklist of birds and telling us how much time you spent and how you collected the data, we can learn much more about the birds in your area. If you answer "yes" to the question, "Are you reporting all the species you observed," then you definitely didn't perform a casual observation! From this type of observation we can learn about the abundance of Bald Eagle relative to the other species on the checklist, and we can know how much time you spent trying to find the birds on that checklist, which provides information on detectability. Think about how easy it is to spot and eagle compared with say, a rail! If you still choose "Casual Observation" as the type of observation, these important data will not be included in many of our analyses and output tools. Be sure to understand the type of survey you're conducting, and don't be afraid to choose something more rigorous than "Casual Observation," especially when you are the ones doing all the work! Read more about this.

    What do you mean by "effort" and why do I have to enter time and distance information?

    Information about how much time you spent watching birds and how far you traveled will help us determine the relative abundance of the birds you reported. For example, finding 50 Black-capped Chickadees in 15 minutes while standing in one place indicates a much different density of chickadees than if you recorded 50 Black-capped Chickadees in four hours while driving 10 miles. Without the time and distance information, eBird biologists won't be able to make a reliable estimate of density.



  • Tip #4: eBird Alerts

    A new feature of eBird is *eBird Alerts*. This service will email you on a regular basis with birds seen in a state that are not on you eBird list (another good reason to keep up your eBird list).

    Go to http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/subscribe-to-ebird-alerts and sign up.

    Then, when you receive the reports from eBird, simply search for "angeles" to jump to the Los Angeles County reports (or search in any other way to meet your needs).

    Great way to be the first (or, actually second) to know about a bird!



    Birding 101
    October and November 2010
    Sponsored by Pasadena Audubon Society and Eaton Canyon Nature Center

    Birding provides enjoyment and challege throughout your life. Birding gets you outdoors on your street or around the world, increases your ability to observe the world around you, increases your appreciation of nature, and is darned fun. So, why put off learning how to be a better birder any longer?

    Join us to learn the sights and sounds of our local birds. We will cover identification, optics, sound players, field guides, note-taking, habitats, birding ethics, and many other topics.

    We expect all participants to attend all class sessions and field trips. Class size is limited to about a dozen people, so don't delay signing up!

    Class-room sessions 7:00-9:00pm at Eaton Canyon Nature Center on October 27, 2010 (Wednesday), November 2, 2010 (Tuesday), and November 10, 2020 (Wednesday).

    Field trips are on October 30 and November 6, 2010. Time and location to be announced at the first class.

    Cost: $50 covers all three classes and two field trips. Payment is payable to "Pasadena Audubon Society" and are due at the first class session.

    Leaders: Ron Cyger and Mark Scheel. For questions or to make reservations, contact Mark and Ron at Birding101@pasadenaaudubon.org.





    Understanding and Describing Bird Sounds
    Sylvia Gallagher
    Sunday, November 14, 2010
    Check-in 8:30 am; Workshop 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
    Eaton Canyon Nature Center

    Learning bird sounds is often hampered by your inability to write down what your hear. In this workshop you'll receive a checklist of characeristics of bird sounds and practice describing sounds using them. Raven lite, free sonogram-making software from Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will be demonstrated. You'll learn how to "read" sonograms, powerful visual tools for learning and describing sounds. Birds produce sounds differently from mammals, and you'll learn what an amazing organ the syrinx is.

    Sylvia Gallagher has conducted beginning and advanced Birding Skills Workshops for Sea and Sage Audubon in Orange County since 1980. She started recording bird sounds in 1984 and has been teaching various Learning Bird Sounds Workshops since 1992. These sounds workshops are also available as self-study learning packages, containing worksheets and CDs of introductory and practice sounds (available from seaandsageaudubon.org). She was also the Director of the Orange County Breeding Bird Atlas and is Bird Information Chairman for Sea and Sage Audubon.

    This is an all-day workshop that will include lunch.

    Price: $25 until 10/31/10 (postmark). $30 beginning 11/1/10.

    Send check payable to PAS to reserve your space (sorry, no refunds):

      Bird Sounds
      Pasadena Audubon Society
      c/o Eaton Canyon Nature Center
      1750 N. Altadena Drive
      Pasadena, CA 91107

    Walk-ins are welcome, but may be disappointed-space is limited.

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