By Jess Garby
December has been all about spreading Christmas Bird Count (CBC) cheer! I visited the Conservation Clubs at Glacier High School and Columbia Falls High School to share the CBC history, highlight some of the data that has been collected, and show students how they can participate. For the Kalispell CBC on January 4, I’ll be guiding a handful of students on my route! I can’t wait to watch them fall in love with birding, or at least enjoy counting the number of Mallards on a pond.
I also had the opportunity recently to offer a lesson at the UpSchool Education co-op on bird beak adaptations,
using our Bird Beak Lab Education Trunk. An excited group of young students could barely sit still as I quizzed
them on local species. One student shared a personal experience she had in her neighborhood woods, describing how the forest had been full of birds. She then asked if I knew of the forest called “Owen Sowerwine.” I exclaimed, “I LOVE Owen Sowerwine! Did you know that the Audubon Society helps take care of those woods?” We both squealed in excitement. I plan to take this school group to Owen Sowerwine in the spring for a birding adventure.
This time of year always puts me in a crafty mood, and what better way to educate others on birds than a
crafting project? That is what the nationwide “Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene” project is all about. FAS hosted two of these Crafting for Conservation workshops in December at Flathead County Libraries. The project goal is to raise awareness about bird collisions and teach folks how to make their windows bird safe. Each participant crafted a bird, representing an individual bird that had been killed by a window strike. All completed birds will be sent to the project’s headquarters where they will be combined with other handcrafted birds from similar workshops around the country to form a 300-foot-long art installation. For more information
on the project, visit https://www.hollygreenberg.com/homepage.
If you would like to participate in another crafting opportunity, join me for an upcoming afternoon of collaging, using bird-themed magazines! Information on that event can be found here: https://flatheadaudubon.org/event/audubon-winter-gathering-collaging/
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