Tag Archives | Altacal Audubon Society

Winter Birds – Neighbors & Visitors: Birds of Your Backyard

Say's Phoebe

Say’s Phoebe

During this age of COVID, many of you have cancelled your birding trip to Surinam or Borneo. So maybe it is a good time to revisit some information on resident birds and our winter visitors. Mac’s presentation is a program to help refresh the minds of experienced birders, as well as provide a general introduction to those more curious about who’s hopping around in their backyard. During the course of the talk, Mac will include tips on bird identification, feeders, feathers, and a few humorous anecdotes of his almost 50 years of “birding”.

John “Mac” McCormick is a retired high school biology teacher of 37 years, and has been an avid birder since the 1970s. He is the former co-director of the San Francisco State University (SFSU) Sierra Nevada Field Station Bird Banding Program. Mac has literally handled thousands of birds during the seventeen summers he spent banding. Since his retirement in 2000, he has traveled the world, bird watching in such exotic places such as the Peruvian Amazon Basin, Brazil, Central America, Australia, and Japan.

Join Altacal’s Zoom Meeting
Monday February 15th
at 6:30pm
Meeting ID: 831 6580 6866 Passcode: 201364
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Altacal Members’ Slide Show & Christmas Bird Count Update

Western Screech-Owl

Western Screech-Owl

Join us for a virtual zoom program with members and friends of Altacal Audubon sharing their photos at our annual Members’ Slide Show, a favorite program for many. There are always some great new, and sometimes old, (that’s OK too) pictures to see and tales to hear. Also, at this program we will hear about plans for the annual Chico and Oroville Christmas bird counts taking place over the following weekends. Contact Jennifer Patten, jpchico@sbcglobal.net, so we know ahead of time how many will be showing photos. You will need to get your photos to Mary Muchowski (director@altacal.org) beforehand on a flashdrive, or have a PowerPoint prepared that you can share on Zoom.

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Northern Saw-whet Owls

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Monday, November 16, 2020 at 6:30pm

Join our ZOOM Meeting by clicking the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86056017933?pwd=QURMbWJ1bzBheTUrV0NqVjNDeXlOUT09

Meeting ID860 5601 7933

Passcode443463

More About the Program:

What do you know about Saw-whet Owls?

If you’re like most of us, probably not much.

But these little birds are all around us, year round, fighting out their fierce lives in our forests and woodlands. Come learn about these neighbors from Ken Sobon, director of the Northern Saw-whet Owl Research & Education Project in Northern California.

The Presenters:

Ken Sobon is an avid birder, field trip leader, Vice President of Altacal Audubon Society, and is now the Northern California representative to Audubon California board of directors. He has worked the last six seasons volunteering and assisting and is now the Director of the Northern Saw-whet Owl fall migration monitoring project. In addition Ken has been a science teacher to middle school students in Oroville since 1995. He has shared his love of science and birding with his students both in the classroom and in field.

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20th Annual Snow Goose Festival

The Pacific Flyway ranks as one of the greatest migratory pathways in the entire world, stretching from the Bering Strait off the coast of Alaska to the steeps of Patagonia in South America. Millions of birds representing hundreds of species use this great avian highway each year, and nowhere is this abundance of wildlife more accessible than right here in the Northern Sacramento Valley.

With an ideal combination of mild winter weather, abundant food and rich quantities of water, the area attracts a huge wintering population of waterfowl and raptors. A local favorite among these is the majestic Snow Goose. With the estimated overall population of Snow Geese exceeding 5 million, as many as one and a half million use the Pacific Flyway. Tens of thousands of these will winter right here in our own backyard.

Here in Chico and the surrounding communities, we celebrate this magnificent spectacle of nature with the Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway. Our mission unites and energizes all of the many volunteers, artists, trip leaders, workshop presenters, educators, community members and sponsors involved with the Snow Goose Festival. We strive to increase public awareness, understanding, appreciation and conservation of the incredible wildlife and related habitats of the Northern Sacramento Valley.

We hope to see you at one of the many events offered at the next Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway!

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Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway

This action-packed 5-day event celebrates the remarkable journey of millions of waterfowl and raptors along the Pacific Flyway that call the Northern Sacramento Valley their home during the winter months. Registration is now open! Choose from over 70 field trips and workshops that are sure to appeal to a wide variety of interests and ability levels. In addition to numerous bird-watching field trips for waterfowl, cranes, raptors and songbirds, you might choose to take a guided tour of a nature preserve, visit a local vineyard, or hike the scenic Sutter Buttes in search of lofty views and resident wildlife.

If you have any questions, you can reach us at info@snowgoosefestival.org, or by calling the Festival Office at 530-592-9092. You can download a PDF of the Festival program here.

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