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Welcome to El Dorado Audubon!

A California Chapter of the National Audubon Society serving the communities of Artesia, Avalon, Bellflower, Carson, Cypress, Hawaiian Gardens, La Palma, Lakewood, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Paramount, Rossmoor, San Pedro, Seal Beach, Signal Hill, Sunset Beach, and Wilmington.

Mission

Photo 2The mission of the El Dorado Audubon Society is the conservation of native birds and their habitats. The society provides leadership in conservation and educates its members and the community, so that they may appreciate birds and participate in the society's conservation efforts.

August-September Events

September Field Trip: L.A. River at Willow for Shorebirds
Leader: Donna Bray
Sunday September 7th 9 a.m.

Fall migration begins in late July and should still be going when we head to the L.A. River to test ourselves on shorebirds. The river is shallow here and a birding hot shot in L.A. County. If we are lucky there may be a rarity reported and an option is to caravan to other areas upriver.

This is a chance to practice your skills on this sometimes-difficult category of birds and learn with other birders. Field guides useful! Bring a spotting scope if you have one, but we can share. Supportive shoes helpful on the concrete, but the walking is easy. A hat, water and sunscreen are essential.

We will meet at the Willow Street access. Directions: From the 710 Freeway use the Willow Street off ramp, heading East over the L.A. River Bridge. Left on Golden Ave., then quickly the first L on 26th, and follow this around past the pump station onto DeForest Avenue. Park near the access gate and meet on the river embankment.

From Clarann Levakis, Nature Center Liason

How to Spend Your Summer Vacation


El Dorado Audubon is coming to the end of this administrative year. Like many other groups, we do not meet publicly or conduct field trips during July and August. If you are relatively new to birding, you may not want to go two months without going out with people who can find and identify the birds. I have a suggestion if you are a beginning birder trying to improve your birding skills and increase your knowledge of our local avifauna. (Please don't be offended by the label "beginning birder". It generally
takes considerable time and effort to move out of this stage. I should know: I was a beginning birder for ten years before I was able to invest the time and effort needed to proceed to the next level.)

You can help yourself become a more accomplished birder, and often learn more than you might by just going out with a birding group where people identify the birds, but don't teach you how to do the same. My suggestion is to adopt a local area to bird on a regular basis. Once a week is an optimal schedule, or as close to that as possible. Many experienced birders follow this practice. They sometimes refer to their adopted area as their "patch".

You need to visit your patch regularly and often, and try to identify every bird on every visit. Most people keep dated lists for their visits, and may include how many of each species they see. I also recommend taking notes and making some kind of drawing of any bird you cannot identify. You may want to write down a verbal description of the bird, but a drawing is even better.
You can label the various parts of the bird by color and note such things as relative size of the bird, and proportions such as tail length, bill thickness, etc. If you are cursed like I am with no artistic gifts, you may be embarrassed by the amateur nature of your efforts. The important thing is that you include as much detail as possible so that you can find the bird in your field guide later. Remember, we often have only a few minutes at most
to view a bird. Its best to spend that time actually documenting the birds features than taking the time to look it up in you field guide, which you can always do once the bird is no longer in sight. Try to note any distinctive behaviors such as wing flicking, tail wagging, etc. If you are able to do so, take notes on any vocalizations the bird uses. Its also often useful to note where you see an unusual or less common bird. The chances are
you will find that individual in or near the same spot on subsequent visits. This is because many species are quite site-tenacious. This is one reason expert birders seem to find and identify birds so quickly. The beginner thinks the ace birder has a phenomenal eye (which they may indeed have) but much of their ease and skill comes from looking for the bird in or near the
same spot each time.

Make sure you try to identify every bird you see, even the starlings, House Sparrows, crows, Rock Pigeons, House Finches Mourning Doves, etc. Exercising this self discipline will eventually "hardwire" a kind of visual template in your brain of the common species. Over time, you will really know all of the common species in your patch. The value of this is that you will immediately notice any unusual bird that comes into the area.

I've suggested you follow this process through the summer, but it will be much more useful if you can make your regular visits for a full year. This will teach you seasonal variations in plumage, and help you learn which birds are year-round residents, winter residents, summer breeders and migrants only passing through. You may notice that fall migrants are not exactly the same birds as spring migrants. Migration routes vary somewhat in our area for spring and fall.

What area should you choose for your patch? Of course our Nature Center is a great place to bird. Or for convenience you might choose a good park in your neighborhood. May I suggest you also consider Gum Grove Park in Seal Beach? This location will allow you to see a variety of passerines (these are our songbirds), raptors, waterfowl, waders and a few shorebirds. (Most people
find shorebirds challenging. You can concentrate on learning them at a special wetland site such as Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, or Bolsa Chica.)

Take the time to really study your field guide away from your patch. The key to really learning birds is to bird in the field, study the guide, bird in the field, study the guide, etc. One last tip: whatever field guide you use, learn the taxonomic order of birds. This is almost always the order the species are presented in the field guide. Nothing will slow you down more than having to turn to the index to look for the bird by page number. At
least learn basics, e.g., swifts come before swallows, crows come before flycatchers, waterfowl come before raptors.

Please take normal precautions in the field. Try to bird with a partner,stay aware of your surroundings, etc. You may not risk being eaten by a crocodile (something that reportedly happened to one hapless birder), but an encounter with a rattle snake (or a human "snake") is something to avoid.

By all means continue to go out with experienced birders who will not only find and identify birds but also teach you how to do the same. They can give you valuable knowledge such as feeding behavior, preferred habitats, etc. I hope you will also adopt a birding location of your own. We need as many educated eyes and ears as possible out there documenting birds if we are to
conserve local habitats and maintain local bird diversity and abundance.
Above all: have fun!

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