The Hermit Thrush Newsletter
The Green Mountain Bird Alliance has awarded a grant to the Young Birders Club at Camels Hump Middle School to support a student-led effort to reduce bird collisions with the school's windows. The students collected and analyzed data to identify the four school windows where bird strikes occurred most frequently. Their research provided the foundation for a practical conservation project aimed at making the building safer for birds.
With over fifty Audubon chapters throughout the United States moving to rename themselves to become “Bird Alliances,” the Vermont chapters met to discuss taking a similar action. After considerable thought and discussion over a two-year period, the Green Mountain Audubon Society voted to change the organization’s name to the Green Mountain Bird Alliance.
Nature has always been my best teacher. The other day, it reminded me, painfully but beautifully, that conservation successes are hard won, measured in tiny increments, and result from tireless work, usually over long periods of time. It reinforced, too, that each of us has a role to play in bringing them about—some admittedly more skillfully than others, as I witnessed firsthand—but a role, nonetheless.
The final tally from last month's Burlington Winter Bird Count was 75 species on count day, plus one hybrid and another 3 count week species (that I know of). Despite challenging conditions with morning snow, we set quite a few new records and had a relatively high number of species for a non-irruption year.
