Utah County Birders Newsletter
October 2003


OCTOBER MEETING:

Wednesday Oct. 22nd

Meet at 7:00 PM in the Bean Museum Auditorium on the BYU Campus.
Advanced Master Gardner Lyle Jenkins will speak to us about Edible Landscaping


FIELD TRIPS:

Sat. Oct. 25th.
Sat. Nov. 15th.


Meet at 8:00 AM at the Orem Center St. commuter parking lot.  Destinations to be announced


2003 PROVO CBC:

Mark your calendars. The Provo Christmas Bird Count will be held on Saturday, December 20th.


Reed's Ramblings
by Reed Stone


Yesterday October 8, 2003 I decided to scout for some productive birding areas. Some BYU students had called for some help locating their 75 birds for their Appreciation of Nature class. I pretty well knew what was on the airport dike so I decided to try some of the more productive birding locations.

The first location was the area north of Goshen that usually is fairly productive. I located one Harrier and the usual Starlings and one Vesper Sparrow. I drove to the Secret Pond area where the first pond is dry and the second was covered with moss. There were no birds, not even a Killdeer. I continued on up through Goshen Canyon. It produced one song sparrow. I then went to Mona Reservoir which produced a fair amount of birds. Canada Goose, Coot, Killdeer, Mallards, Gadwall, Snowy Egret and some ducks I could not identify because of the distance and light distortions. The ducks and geese are pretty cautious because of the hunting season being open. I drove on to Burriston Ponds. At the ponds I located one Pied Billed Grebe and one Northern Harrier. I returned along the frontage road back toward Santiquin. Along the road I saw one Red Tailed, two Swainson’s and one Ferruginous hawk. At Spring Lake I was surprised to see a hunting Osprey, Gadwalls, Mallards and Coot. Salem pond was about the same with Mallards, Coot and Pied Billed Grebe. Salem Pond is in bloom, Algae Bloom. The bloom may be repelling some species. I find it hard to believe but I saw one, only one, Kestrel on the whole trip. I may be going blind.

Although this is usually "drought" time for birding I think it is a little less productive because of the lack of moisture. Plants that are usually green at this time of year are dry. This effects the production of insect food. It is also warmer than usual. The warm conditions may be delaying the departure time for our northern visitors.
 
Birding is still fun and interesting just the same. Now seems to be a good time to bird the high mountain areas.


*** Rib Tickler--- The reason they did not play cards on Noah's Arc is because Noah sat on the deck.


UOS Fall Conference:

The Utah Ornithological Society annual fall conference will be held on November 7th through the -9th, 2003 at the University of Utah. The conference will start out with the keynote address and reception on Friday evening, the 7th of November. The keynote address by Frank Howe will be entitled, “On a Wing and a Prayer: Monitoring Utah’s Songbird Populations.”

Saturday will be the main day for presentations, including one by our own Merrill Webb who will present a study he did about Harker Canyon and the effects of a forest fire in that area. Also presenting will be our own Robin Tuck. He’ll talk about the Utah Breeding Bird Atlas.

There will be field trips on Sunday lead by Keith Evans and Mark Stackhouse.

For more details, a registration form and directions on how to get to the conference, go to the UOS web pages at  http://www.utahbirds.org/uos/.