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Our chapter was honored to be a guest at the Mark Wellman Adventure Day event last Sunday. Mark Wellman adventure day is an event at Sparks Marina where disabled people have the opportunity to try outdoor activities such as kayaking and rock climbing. Our staff brought along a number of resources for participants to learn and interact with, including binoculars and museum skins. We had a wonderful time speaking with and entertaining guests who stopped by. We also kept a small bird list of the species we observed flying by as we spoke with guests. Sparks Marina is a wonderful birding hotspot and without intentionally seeking, we observed 22 different species. A full list is included as part of the trip report below. Our staff sends a huge thank you to all the partner organizations involved including:
We are so excited to welcome two new trustees to our board of directors. Sally “Lolly” Bates and Lauren Whitenack will be starting their 3 year terms on July 1st and Suzie Reynolds has been elected to serve a second term. We are so grateful to have these three serve on our board and we are looking forward to working with them. We also want to send a big thank you to our outgoing board members, Valerie Andersen and Olivia Sembach. Valerie has been instrumental in getting our Area Birding Guides updated and helped develop the Urban Waterfowl Interpretive Panels for Virginia Lake and Sparks Marina. Olivia has been our webmaster and was responsible for getting our website updated and creating the Native Plants for Birds pages.
A particularly virulent strain of avian flu has been spreading in the US. Much like the flu in humans, avian flu is cyclical and new strains may cause higher infection and mortality rates. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Center for Disease control are both carefully monitoring the situation. As of 5/9/22, there have been no cases of this strain reported in Nevada. You can check the USDA’s full list of documented cases here. The risk to humans is low, however, there has been one reported case of this strain making the jump to a human in Colorado. If you find a dead bird and would like to report it, do not handle the bird and contact Nevada Department of Wildlife for further instructions.
We will be monitoring the situation in our area and providing updates when necessary. If there is an outbreak in your area, please remove bird feeders and baths until the outbreak has subsided. Additionally, it is good practice to regularly sterilize your bird feeders and baths to avoid outbreaks of any communicable disease in your backyard flock. Check out our article on Salmonella and Responsible Bird Feeding for details on maintaining feeders. We are honored to be participating as a guest at Mark Wellman Adventure Day. Mark Wellman Adventure Day is a free event for people with disabilities to try physical activities such as kayaking, cycling and now birding! The event will happen on Sunday, June 5th at Sparks Marina from 9am to 2:30pm. We are seeking volunteers for this event. These volunteers would help us with tabling, as well as showing guests how to use binoculars and spotting scopes, and taking guests on small walks where they can see the birds at the Marina, like Mallards, Cormorants and Coots. If you are interested in volunteering at this event, please send an email to contact@nevadaaudubon.org.
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