It doesn’t happen often enough, so when it does happen I have to stop and take notice.  It happened Thanksgiving weekend when my nieces’ eight year old son Max and his friend Aden co-opted me and some other adults and talked us into taking them rock hunting.  The day long adventure led to more than just finding shiny rocks.

            The weather was beautiful and the creek and surrounding forest just seemed like the perfect place to be.  Meandering up a creek bed for a while and then climbing up and over a very steep hillside we found rocks, lots of rocks.  We also found lichens, mosses, and fungi.  We found deer scat, insect galls, and animal burrows.  Along with all that we found that the most enjoyable thing was seeing the fun the children were having and all that was needed was some curiosity and nature. At the end of the day everyone was physically exhausted but mentally invigorated, not unlike a long, fun day of birdwatching. 

            It was the next day, after everyone left, that it happened.  I came to the realization that the children had made me realize how lucky I am and how much I have to be thankful for.  So as I thought about what to write in this newsletter I felt compelled to thank all the people that make East Ozarks Audubon what it is.  These are the people I’d like to thank:  People who volunteered to help with events, people who volunteered to shovel mulch, build bridges and clean signs, people who organize meetings and bring refreshments, people who provide transportation and organization of outings, people who share their birding skills with others, people who write articles and stories for the newsletter, people who participated in the Birdathon and raised money, people who share their time and skills at Board meetings, people who come to the meetings to learn and share new things, and finally people who do all these things!

At the board of directors meeting in November the topic was discussed of making awards to winners of the area Science Fair conducted at Mineral Area College each spring.

     The board has been checking out various ways to use some of our funds to enhance issues of environmental education in our six-county area.

     Vice-President Jenny Gunn has served as a judge in the spring event from her chair as head of the science department.

     Jenny has offered to serve as liaison between the Chapter and the College in serving notice to the various schools that several awards will be available. 

   The topic at the board meeting was to offer two prizes, one to a middle school student and one to a high school student. An amount of $200 value for each prize was suggested.  The award would be for a prize such as a pair of good binoculars and not for cash.

     It was felt that sufficient funds will be available for at least five years and that fund raisers in that period of time could extend this project well iinto the future.

     The suggestion was by Ron Mullikin who has just taken his seat on the board after a 27-year absence, since he was a charter member of the board when East Ozarks Audubon was organized in the fall of 1980.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development- will receive $1,227,192 in federal stimulus funds as part of $55 million in green jobs grants.  The grants fund job training and labor market information programs to help workers find jobs in green industries and related operations.

The Missouri Department of Transportation- has submitted an application for $200 million for a Trucks Only Lane (TOL) on a section of I-70 in western Mo.  The federal government via the Department of Transportation is authorizing grants for certain projects as part of the stimulus package. MoDOT sees this as the beginning of a TOL project from Kansas City to St. Louis that could cost six billion to build. The project proposal is based on projecting past trends based on cheap oil, low fuel taxes and fees for heavy trucks. Energy dependence and climate change call for more freight movement by rail which is at least three times more efficient than trucks. Alternative proposals could be funded with that money that would promote rail travel and  public transportation.

Missouri’s DNR-has a new director, Mark N. Templeton. He is a Missouri native who has worked in Bangkok, Thailand and New Delhi, India.  Prior to his return to Missouri he was associate dean at Yale Law School. Some of the issues that would promote conservation goals are Proposition C which would require utilities to use a percentage of renewable energy among their sources. The 2008 legislation requires that DNR carry on various energy programs such as offering energy audits. Other issues ahead for the new director are the permitting process for confined feeding operations and meeting Clean Air standards.

A 2006 water supply study- projected that an additional 102 million gal. of water will be needed across southwest Mo. to meet average daily demand in 2050. The Tri-State Water Coalition recently met in Mt. Vernon, Mo. where the focus on the technical aspect of finding more water shifted to a political discussion. Earlier the plan was to get water from an existing impoundment such as Table Rock Lake rather than build a new reservoir which would likely be met with strong opposition and prove too costly. The plan to get water from an existing impoundment is fraught with regulatory problems in that the state opposes moving water from one basin to another. A strategic planning committee is being formed.

Mitigating Climate Change: The details of California's partnerships with state governments in Brazil and Indonesia (which have more than half the world's remaining tropical forests) to preserve their forests, will help to set rules for cap and trade legislation.  The details include how to measure the CO² cuts and how much to pay for preserving forests.

Restoring grazing land that has been chomped bare could soak up billions of tons carbon. Paying landowners to sequester carbon might be another option for consideration. Adding charcoal from plant waste, called biochar, to soil has the potential to sequester some of the CO² we add annually to the atmosphere.

BP (Beyond Petroleum): Quietly shutters its energy-alternative division.

Restoration of "Roadless Rule": More than 40 million acres of public land are protected from development after the Court of Appeals form the Ninth Circuit restores this rule which the Bush administration blocked.

Nixes New Mining Uranium: Secretary of the Interior stops new mining on one million acres of public land around the Grand Canyon.

According to Nina Chastain, program chair, we’ll be seeing a good deal of critters in our first three meetings of the 2010 year.

   First on tap will be the January 21^st program on “Butterflies and Dragonflies of the Southeast District of Missouri” by Bob Gillespie, a natural history biographer of the Missouri Department of Conservation.

   Appearing on the March 19^th program will be our own Mick Sutton and Sue Hagan who are widely regarded as experts in anything underground or in caves.

   Mick and Sue will use their expertise on bats of the world and particularly on the bats of Missouri.  They have long been official monitors of the bat population in Devil’s Ice Box atop Pilot Knob Mountain for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

   The May 21^st program will be given by Stephen Shunk, “naturalist, author, photographer and field biologist” from “Paradise Birding” of Sisters, Oregon.

   Stephen gave the program for the fall meeting of Audubon Society of Missouri held at Lake of the Ozarks State Park.

   His specialty is “Woodpeckers of North America” but he offers to narrow his program to Missouri woodpeckers.

  Bill Clark, historian of ASM, said it was the best program they had in 25 years.

East Ozarks birders enjoyed a field day on October 17^th at favorite birding locations in southeast Missouri, including Lake Wappapello, Mingo National Wildlife Refuge and Otter Slough Conservation Area.  Chapter birders included Gary Chastain, Jenny Gunn, Sue Hagan, Bob Lewis, Bill and Debbie Reeves, Lynne Winston and Teal Schneider.   Unusually cold and wet conditions earlier in the week gave way to clearing skies and 50-degree temperatures, making for a surprisingly pleasant day.

Our first stop was at Hattie’s Ford, part of the Lost Creek Wildlife Area on the northeast side of Lake Wappapello.  A half-mile round trip walk in the brushy wetland area produced good numbers and variety of bird species.  The usual titmice and chickadees were soon joined by Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.  A late empidonax flycatcher, probably a Least Flycatcher, made a brief appearance.  In the underbrush along the roadside ditch we found White-throated Sparrows, Eastern Towhees (male and female), Northern Cardinals and several species of woodpeckers.  Turkey Vultures and a Red-shouldered Hawk soon made their presence known.  An Orange-crowned Warbler flicked in and out of the understory, eventually giving most of us a decent look at him.  A Raccoon scurried across the road ahead of us, appearing as surprised as we were that he was still frolicking around so late in the morning. On the way back to the parking lot along D Highway, we found a late migrant Indigo Bunting, still molting partially blue wing and tail feathers.

At Eagle Point overlook (on the southeast side of Wappapello Dam), we set up our spotting scopes and began panning the Lake.  Hundreds of Tree Swallows swarmed over the lake.  A late Nashville Warbler posed beautifully in a sycamore branch only a few feet from the observation tower. A Bonaparte’s Gull and a couple of Ring-billed Gulls then appeared, followed by a Belted Kingfisher, and finally a Double-crested Cormorant.  Leaving Wappapello, we drove into the Mingo refuge from the south entrance and did a little stop-and-go birding from our cars on our way to the HQ.  There we pooled vehicles and headed to Otter Slough.

Sue Hagan, Gary Chastain, Lynne Winston, Bill Reeves, Jenny Gunn and Debbie Reeves find birds at Hattie’s Ford.

              At Otter Slough we scanned the shallow wetlands known as Plover Pond, finding hordes of Northern Pintails and Mallards, a few Pied-billed Grebes, Blue-winged Teal and Northern Shovelers. We scoped the large Otter Lake for possible diving ducks, finding a couple more Cormorants and a few Great Blue Herons loafing with Canada Geese on the levees.  Driving perimeter gravel roads around the refuge, we eventually found Gadwalls, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, Wood Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks and American Coots, along with several late Great Egrets still hanging around.  An occasional Harrier or Bald Eagle stirred up small clouds of waterfowl. Mud flats produced a lone Brewer’s Blackbird, along with a nice variety of shorebirds, including Killdeer, Long-billed Dowitchers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Pectoral and Least Sandpipers.  Our final “catch” of the day there was a group of five American Pipits foraging in a wet, plowed field.

Overall, it was a gratifying and enjoyable day.  Despite below-average cool temperatures, we

drummed up some 73 species of birds. Not a bad way to spend a crisp fall Saturday . . .  

By Bob Lewis

     The December issue of River Hills Traveler features a 3-page article on winter birding in Missouri written by a freelance writer from Fayette named Sylvia Forbes.

     Emery Styron, publisher of the Traveler, had suggested Sylvia contact me since he knew I am connected to East Ozarks Audubon and so she called me in late October.  We had just had our Chapter field trip to Mingo and Otter Slough and so I told her about that and even offered a picture of our Chapter members on the trip.

    Sylvia used this picture in her article as well as a picture of a Hermit Thrush by Bill Rudden that I steered her to.  She was very generous to our Chapter.  Here’s what she had to say about us:

“The East Ozarks Audubon Society is a great group of nature enthusiasts who traipse all over southeast Missouri to look at nature, with a special interest in birds.

   “They meet monthly in Farmington to talk about birds and nature.  To find out more about the group, visit www.eastozarksaudubon.org.

   “To provide a way for people to easily see birds, the group created a 35-acre nature sanctuary in Farmington at Engler Park.  There is a bird viewing blind and about ten bird feeders grouped together.  The public is invited to come and watch the birds, squirrels and other nature that shows up.  About 30 different bird species have been seen at this location which is in a wooded area on the west side of the park.”

   Sorry she assumed we meet monthly.

Ruby Long was recently honored by Southeast Missouri State University with an “Alumna Merit Award” for her work with blind children and children’s diseases as well as her interest in helping others.  This honor is granted to those who have brought distinction to themselves and the University through scholarship and career activities.

   At her home in Farmington Ruby has twice as many bird feeders as we have at Crouch Nature Sanctuary. 

   She received her masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Missouri and did post doctoral work at the universities of Iowa and Minnesota.   Her teaching career included public schools in Fredericktown, Ladue, Clayton and the St. Louis County Special District.

   She also received higher education appointments at St. Louis University, University of Louisville, North Carolina’s Chapel Hill, UMSL and Washington University.  She retired from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville as Professor Emerita.

   She did research involving a cooperative program at St. Louis schools to integrate children who were blind with seeing children in grades one through six and at the University of Missouri Medical School studying diagnosis procedures for children with multiple handicaps.

   Dr. Long distinguished herself in working with treatment of childrens’ diseases in both Missouri and Illinois.  Since retirement she has been recognized for volunteer work with the Arthritis Foundation, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and St. Louis United Way.

   Locally, her interest has been Meals on Wheels for special diets.  Ruby learned on one occasion that one of her clients must move but had no money.  First thing you know, she was physically helping the family move to another location.  On another occasion she drove one of her clients to the funeral of a relative in Illinois.

   Ruby has long been interested in the aims of Audubon and we are fortunate to have her as a member.