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Painting Raffle Fundraiser A Success

Our painting raffle fundraiser brought in about $1,000 from ticket sales. The event drew to a conclusion with a random selection software tool applied to the list of ticket purchasers. The winner of artist Elli Sorensen’s multi media painting, Cliff Swallows Along the San Francisco River, was Amy Erickson, an avian ecologist from Socorro, New Mexico. Amy is thrilled with her acquisition and it will be cherished. Five winners of a 1-year SWNMAS membership extension are Terry Jurrens of Deming, Karen Nakakihara of Silver City, Lynn Fowler of Tucson, AZ, Peter Gorman of Silver City and Mary Barrett of Silver City.

Thank You for Your Support!

We Exist Because of You!

Every organization whose year-end messages reach your in-box has a paragraph about the challenges of 2020, the year of Covid-19, a year devoid of embraces among friends and of social isolation. For those of us who dedicate time as SWNM Audubon volunteers, we have missed the room filled with people during those first Friday of the month evening programs. Classroom bird lessons were cut short and the Board of Directors does not meet in person. Yet we have adapted.

Despite the ever growing reality of “Zoom burn-out” our Zoom programs have been well attended and the Facebook page currently has 111 followers. In spite of the challenges that we face as an organization and in our individual lives, we are grateful to all of you, our members and supporters whose generosity is both humbling and uplifting. When we meet again in person it will truly be cause for celebration!

— Lisa Fields, Vice President

An Epic Year For the 2019 CBC

Geoff LeBaron, Director, Christmas Bird Count, breaks down everything we learned from the 120th Christmas Bird Count

When Frank Chapman published the results from the humble beginnings on December 25, 1900—27 people tallied birds and their combined effort in 25 locations across the continent—it was probably unfathomable to him that the brand new “Christmas Bird Census” would last well over a century, and grow to cover the entire Western Hemisphere and beyond.  The 120th Christmas Bird Count was as grand as its title suggests. The centivintennial count drew a record-breaking 81,601 observers including 40 new count circles. But while humans were out in full force, it is both surprising and worrisome that the total number of birds tallied last season dropped to 42,704,077 birds—that’s around six million birds lower than the previous year. One cannot help but wonder what’s going on and what may be causing it. We plan to do a future analysis of long-term CBC results, looking at species groups, numbers of birds, and the total effort each season, to look into where the largest declines seem to be happening. Curious how all of this data fits together? Check out the CBC Trends Viewer! from American Birds/National Audubon Society.

2020— 121st Christmas Bird Count: With the COVID-19 pandemic that has become all-consuming since March of 2020, it will be an “interesting” Christmas Bird Count season for the 121st Count, one like none other in history.  Watch for our local 2020 results in the upcoming March – April RAVENS newsletter.

SWNM Audubon & Gila Native Plant Society→ YouTube.com

SWNMA and GNPS have teamed up to compile our societies’ educational videos on a joint YouTube channel! Our mission is to have one easy location for members and local educators to view past programs and shorter videos for school kids with a variety of natural resource subject videos highlighting people, places and species found in our region.

Join us in this fun and ongoing effort, and if you feel inspired to make a video contribution — birding your backyard, your favorite species, a tour of your favorite birding spot — please let us know! In this time of virtual learning, we feel the most useful are short 5 minute videos targeted to school kids.