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Welcome to our new Field Trip Committee Chair, Lauren Whitenack! Lauren is a PhD student at the University of Nevada, Reno studying Mountain Chickadee breeding ecology, and one of our newest Trustees. She has been interested in birds from the young age of 13 when she began volunteering at the Intermountain Bird Observatory near Boise, ID. Before moving to Reno in August 2021, she worked as a bird bander in both Idaho and Western North Carolina and conducted bird research as an undergraduate. She is currently a graduate teaching assistant for a Field Ornithology course at UNR, and enjoys sharing her passion for birds with others. Lauren is bringing a fresh energy to the field trip committee and wants to know how we can best serve you. Please fill out this short survey on what you would like to see from our field trip programs in the future. You can also join Lauren on her upcoming field trip to Rancho San Rafael or Hunter Creek Trail and thank her for coordinating our birding field trips!
Also a huge thank you to our outgoing committee chair, Jasmine Kleiber, for all the great work she has done over the past few years! We have a vacant seat on our Board of Trustees and we are looking for someone with a passion for our mission to step up. Trustees attend monthly board meetings, support strategic planning for our organization, and provide guidance to our programs. If you are interested in learning more, please contact our president, Suzie Reynolds and she will be happy to give you more information.
We are so excited to be back to our in-person monthly membership meetings and a huge thank you to Bob Goodman for kicking off the season last month. We are looking for volunteers to help host the snacks and beverages that we provide at each meeting. This would entail purchasing light snacks, and setting up the hospitality table before the start of the meeting. LAS will reimburse volunteers for the snacks they purchase and we are hoping to have different volunteers sign up for each meeting. If you are interested in helping or if you have any additional questions, please send us a message and we hope to see you at our October meeting.
 Volunteer shorebird surveyors at Carson Lake, Spring 2022 - photo by Diane Wong-Kone Desert wetlands provide critical stopover sites for shorebirds flying north and south on long, annual migration journeys, but increasing drought and increased water demands diminish our wetlands. Wetland land managers need to carefully balance scarce water in the West, to supply needed stopover habitat where migrating shorebirds can rest and feed along their journey. Lahontan Audubon Society volunteers are helping to inform water management needs by monitoring shorebirds in the Lahontan Valley Wetlands near Fallon, NV. Our volunteer crews help state and federal biologists count birds in spring and fall.
By Jeff Bleam
This walk was along the Carson River with Riparian, Sagebrush, and Ranch habitats. While meeting up we heard HOUSE WREN, MAGPIE, KESTREL, and a RED-TAILED HAWK. We walked along the river and saw and heard nothing for over a 1/2 hour but when we reached the Mexican Ditch things changed. In this section it is where there is a diversion runoff from the ditch and we found WOOD PEWEE and WESTERN TANAGER. As we approached the Dam we came across Warblers: YELLOW, WILSON'S, and after reviewing photos a NASHVILLE. Shortly after the Warblers, we came across a herd of Sparrows: SAGEBRUSH, BLACK-THROATED with many immature, and BREWERS with young. I like this walk for the good possibility of seeing Jays. We saw CA SCRUB JAYS and many PINYON JAYS and after the walk I was able to photograph what look like an immature calling. We also saw Monarchs and a Praying Mantis and ended the walk with 35 species. Good day.
It would not be possible to do all the work we do without our dedicated volunteers. Your service is a huge gift to us and we want to make sure that we have a full account of volunteer hours donated to LAS. Reporting your hours helps us to apply for grants, properly recognize our volunteers' contributions, and report back to our funders. We are wrapping up reporting for our last fiscal year (7/1/21-6/30/22) and need everyone to please report their hours. If you have any questions about reporting volunteer hours, please contact Jennie.
 Fall migration is almost upon us! We are looking for volunteers who are interested in coordinating some birding walks so we can share fall migration with more people in our community. You don’t have to be an expert birder to lead a walk, just someone who is familiar with a local birding spot and interested in learning. If you want to find out more about leading or co-leading a birding walk, please send a message to our Field Trip Committee.
 For the past two years, Parker Flickinger has served as our Community Engagement and Marketing Coordinator VISTA. Parker has been an amazing addition to our team, developing our Birding by Bus program, welcoming new field trip volunteers, hosting auditory bird walks with Nevada Federation for the Blind, and spreading his passion for birds to everyone he meets. Parker has also been the voice behind our social media accounts and created our YouTube channel where we share our presentations and educational programs. His enthusiasm and energy will be missed and we wish Parker the best as he pursues a graduate degree. Thanks for everything, Parker!!!
We have new officers on our Board of Trustees. Huge thank you to our outgoing president, David Jickling, and outgoing secretary, Suzie Reynolds. Though neither of them will be going far! Suzie was elected as the new president of our organization and David was elected to fill the Vice President seat that has been vacant for the past year. Mike Goddard was elected to serve as secretary and Bill Fletcher has agreed to stay on as our treasurer. The rest of our board is filled out by Brendan Bucy, Rose Strickland, Bri Usdrowski, and our newest board members, Sally Bates, and Lauren Whitenack. Please join us in thanking this dedicated group of volunteers for their service. We do have some committee chair roles that we are looking to fill. If you are interested in leading any of our committees please fill out a volunteer interest form.
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