We have a lot of great events and walks scheduled for our new year beginning in September.  You should be receiving our September newsletter in your mailbox soon.  Our first program of the year begins with Tom Ryan on Least Terns, details below.  At the refuge the September tour is a National Public Lands Day event, which you will find on our September calendar for your convenience along with all our regularly scheduled walks.  Note Colorado Lagoon walks will resume in October.  Also on September 15th we’ll be participating with El Dorado Nature Center for California Coastal Cleanup Day.  In October we are pleased to present our first birding class — many thanks to Anne Maben and Charlie Collins for putting this great resource together for all of us!  Finally, 2019 is our 50th Year Anniversary!  We hope you enjoy all the activities this year and look forward to seeing you soon!

September Program:

Tom Ryan — Studies of the California Least Terns: migration, dispersal and predicting the population trends

Our first general meeting of our new year kicks off with a few short announcements followed by a presentation on Least Terns by biological consultant and researcher Tom Ryan.

Mr. Ryan has been trapping and marking adult California Least Terns throughout colonies in Southern California since 2012. He has conducted studies of their movements using light-level geolocators and more recently has been attaching field readable alphanumeric bands in order to better understand movements between their colonies and to look at the population structure. Colony monitors have noted lower productivity at colonies for the past 10 years and there is fear of a population decline in the coming years. He will show how biologists are trying to study this issue and present the latest information that informs us of where their population is heading. He is also teaming with researchers in Baja California to try to determine the southern extent of the “California” least tern.

Join us for this interesting event on Thurs., Sept. 20th, at 7:30 p.m., El Dorado Nature Center, 7550 E. Spring St., LB. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., program ends 8:30 p.m. followed by a brief Q&A, doors close at 9:00 p.m. Parking is free and light refreshments will be served. Please bring recyclable cans/plastic bottles with caps removed to help support chapter activities. Hope to see you there!