August-September 2009 Skimmer Newsletter Francis M. Weston Audubon Society

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Environmental EncountersSummer Camp ‘09

Contnes on bottom o pae 3.

Aug.–Sept. 2009Vol. XXXVI No. 2

two Eastern Screech Owls. Campers

also met the RHEC reptiles, sampled

pond lie using microscopes, hiked

nature trails, dissected squid, and

learned about and searched or

invasive species, just to list a ew o

the activities.

During the week, the campers

made many memorable comments

about camp activities. Beore being

introduced to reptiles and amphib-

ians, they participated in a touch-

station activity where they reached

into a box without looking rst.

Inside the box were clues or the

upcoming activity. One touch sta-

tion represented “rog eggs” (it was

actually cottage cheese). Seeing the

look on the children’s aces when

they stuck their hands into the box

was priceless!

One day we ocused on ponds and wetlands. The excitement was

evident as everyone got their hands dirty. There were no “ewws,”

only “ahhs” as their discoveries included close-up looks at spiders,

worms, and sh through discovery scopes. Ater a lesson on how

to properly use a microscope, students observed planktonic lie,

by Jennier Butera

This summer marked the beginning o a new program held at Escambia County School System’s Roy

Hyatt Environmental Center (RHEC). Twenty-one third- and ourth-grade students rom Florida and

Alabama participated in the summer camp ocusing on a variety o habitats and human impacts

on the environment. Through experiments, demonstrations, eld activities, and art projects,

participants explored their world in a “hands-on and hands-in” manner. The days few by with

students engaged in birding and other activities, including meeting our resident plumaged pair:

then sketched and recorded

movements o larvae and other

lie as it scurried across the

microscope slides. Someone in

the class commented, “There is

lie under there, there is really

lie!”

During our squid dissection

we inormed the campers we

would be cooking what we dis-

sected to give them a taste o

calamari. During our “squid

races” activity each camper

built his/her own squid out o

balloons, straws and stream-

ers to test jet propulsion.

They then had to race their

“squids” against one another.

One camper, who named her

creation “Big Blue,” was so

excited she got so ar in the race that throughout the day she

kept stating “I knew Big Blue could do it, I just knew he could!”

She was so proud!

During our “musical chairs” science activity, each chair re-

moved equaled the loss o an animal habitat. When the rst

Adbon Smmer Camp stdents at RHEC dent and recordresdent brds vstn the Brdn Bs eedn staton.



Field Trips

n Saturday, August 29, Ft. Pickens Native

Plants.

James Burkhalter will lead us along the Blackbird

Marsh Nature Trail and the Dunes Nature Trail

to observe the native plants and all blooming

wildfowers. Expect easy walking in sand. Bring

a picnic lunch and beverages or the day. Meet

at 7:30 a.m. in the Pensacola Visitor’s Center

parking lot located at the north end o the

Pensacola Bay Bridge, or at 8:00 a.m. in the

sound side parking lot at the entrance to Ft.

Pickens. We plan to nish by early aternoon.

n Saturday, September 12, Ft. Walton Beach

Spray Fields and Navarre Beach Park Birding.

Dana Timmons will lead us around and throughthe spray elds, adjacent ponds, and orested

areas in search o early all migrants. Expect

moderate walking with possibly some wet

conditions. Plan to eat lunch in a restaurant.

Meet at 7:30 a.m. in the Oce Depot shopping

center parking lot located across Hwy. 98 rom

the Gul Breeze Hospital entrance. We plan to

return by mid aternoon.

n Saturday, September 26, Perdido Key

Native Plants.

James Burkhalter will lead us along the JohnsonBeach Nature Trail in search o native plants and

late summer blooming wildfowers. Expect easy

walking in sand. Meet at 7:30 a.m. in the Big

Lots parking lot on the east side o Navy Blvd.

south o U.S. Hwy. 98 in Warrington. We plan to

nish by noon.

n Saturday, October 10, Ft. Pickens Birding.

Bob and Lucy Duncan will lead us to look or all

migrants in the Ft. Pickens area o Gul Islands

National Seashore. We will get to see how it haschanged, and hopeully see lots o birds. Expect

moderate walking. Insect repellent may be

needed. Bring a picnic lunch and beverages or

the day. Meet at 7:30 a.m. in the Oce Depot

shopping center parking lot located across Hwy.

98 rom the Gul Breeze Hospital entrance, or at

8:00 a.m. in the sound side parking lot located

at the entrance to Ft. Pickens. We plan to return

by early aternoon.

C A L

E N

D A

R

o

f

E V E N

T S

Chapter Meetings

n Pensacola Junior College, Main Campus, 7 p.m.,

Baroco Science Center, Room 2142 except asotherwise noted. Guests welcome!

n August 27. Picnic at PJC.Please bring ood or you and your amily plus one,and enjoy our evening.

Enid Siskin, adjunct proessor o EnvironmentalScience at UWF and a local environmental activist,

will discuss the ongoing ght against o-shoredrilling in Florida. She will provide tips on actionswe can take to prevent the appearance and residue

o oil derricks o our shores. Eric Draper, Audubono Florida, states that o-shore drilling is one o the

most critical issues we will aggressively toil againstthis year.

n September 24. Attracting

Butterfies. Mary Peterzenand Theresa Friday, rom thePanhandle Butterfy House,

will present a program on theattraction o butterfies to your

landscape and the importanceo their role in nature. They

will also discuss their “Kid-a-pillar” program and itssuccess.

Other Events

n Board o Directors’ Meetings:

Thursdays, 7 p.m., September 3, and October 1 atthe Baskerville-Donovan Building, 449 West Main

Street, Pensacola. Open to all members.

2

Courtesy joyulbuttery.com



T

he Roy Hyatt Center Committee is

delighted with the current state o our

programs at the environmental acility.

Francis M. Weston Audubon natural-ist Jennier Butera and ve volunteers

completed the rst o what we hope will

be many years o summer camps. Twenty-one third and

ourth graders participated in a week-long camp that

ran rom 9 a.m.–4 p.m., Monday–Friday. At the end

o camp, each participant received a CD containing a

photographic memory book o their camp.

Recently we received ocial notice rom the Nation-

al Fish and Wildlie Foundation o the extension o our

Gul Coast Urban Educational Initiative (GCUEI) Grant

or another school year. The continuation o the grant

will permit us to operate eld trips or second and th

graders to RHEC and to promote RHEC sta visits to ten

low perorming schools through the upcoming academic

year. It will also allow us to retain Jennier as our ull-

time naturalist. (The chapter will still have to make a

substantial nancial contribution to the project.)

We have also been notied that we will receive a

$700 grant rom Ascend Perormance Materials (or-

merly Solutia) to assist the GCUEI grant with unds to

pay or bus transportation to the Hyatt Center or those

schools that cannot pay their portion o the bus and driver

costs or eld trips.

We are grateul to all our sponsors, to Jennier and her

volunteers, and to the Escambia County School District or

its partnership in both our summer camp and our regular

school year eld trips.

3

F R O M T H E C E N T E R b James Brad

child was “out,” she didn’t get upset, but asked, “Ms. Jennier,

is it okay i I dance to the music since I am out already?” Her

attitude towards this miniscule deeat was one o which we

should all take note.All in all, the week was antastic and the children were great.

There is nothing quite like having the amazing opportunity to show

and share the wonders o our world with the young. Oten it is rom

them we learn many o the things that, as adults, we have orgot-

ten!

Please visit our website at www.mwaudubon.org to view our camp

photo album.

Environmental Encounters,continued rom ront page

Dscovern the vared det o owls,stdents also learned abot lab saetprotocols as the dssected owl pellets.

Envronmental Enconters stdents sample pond water to preparesldes n the mcroscope lab. The were astonded to see so mchle wthn a snle drop.



Tripping B Ann Forster

Both photos by Dan Forster.

5

Last January Jan Lloyd, Betsy Tetlow, Gary Breece and my husband,

Dan, and I headed to the Andes o Ecuador. We were lucky in thatour avorite guide, Lelis Navarrete, was between trips to Peru so

he was our leader. We saw more than 500 species o birds includ-

ing 49 species o hummingbirds. To say that the logistics o the trip were

smooth would bring a big horse laugh rom the aorementioned. The o-

fce had hired two new women who managed to have more wires crossed

than Gul Power has wires. Lelis had an itinerary which was dierent rom

ours. “What do you mean two days at Buenaventura? Our list says our!”

The “extra” days were to be spent at Tapichalaca Lodge. On our way

down, I asked i they knew we were coming. Lelis smiled indulgently and

said, “O course.” This lodge is hours rom the nearest town, and the

road was closed several hours a day or repairs. When we got there, the

expressions on the aces o the personnel told us all we needed to know.

I was eyeing the soa in the commons room while a hushed discussion

produced the plan. We would sleep in the researchers’ dorm and they

would sleep on the oor o the dining room. When we got to the

bunkhouse, Jan and I told Betsy that she was lucky because we had gone

to the same camp as girls and could sing camp songs.

As it turned out, we had a wonderul experience. Dan got to see

his frst Jocotoco Antpitta with Lelis, who had discovered it. We also

watched rare Golden-plumed Parakeets using new nest boxes or the

frst time.

The grand fnale was nothing the ofce could have done anything

about. While we were in the legendary birding area o Mindo, there was a

Two Wrongs Can Make a Right

landslide on the Mindo to Quito highway. Our guide assured us that they

were working on the road, but we might have to hike out over the slide

and have a van meet us on the other side. Oh, yeah. As it turned out, the

whole highway had peeled away leaving an enormous gap. To return to

Quito, we drove on the old one-lane mud and gravel Nono-Mindo Road,

meeting buses, trucks, and construction equipment in a driving rainstorm

It was such a great adventure that we are going back in January 2010.

F or the last fteen years, the membership o FMWAS has gra-

ciously supported environmental education in area schools by

purchasing sets o Audubon Adventures (AA) or classrooms.

During the last school year, we experimented with the pro-

gram to ensure the most efcient use o unds and to support the nature

programs we provide at the Roy Hyatt Environmental Center (RHEC).

Previously a $50 contribution supplied one classroom (32 students) with

our issues o the AA newsletter. With our new plan, this same contri-

bution provides one issue or each o 160 students. Ater a class visits

the Center, the teacher now receives a classroom set o an AA issue on

the topic presented in the center lesson. The teachers love using thesematerials to ollow-up their Hyatt visits. Jenn and Molly, the Center

teachers, are excited that Audubon Adventures now reinorces each RHEC

environmental lesson. Our new use o AA is a great success! Classroom

sets o Audubon Adventures will continue to be supplied to teachers who

request them and to those classes sponsored by contributors.

We hope that you will continue to support our environmental educa-

tion program or the 2009-2010 school year by sending your contribu-

tion in the enclosed envelope. With your help, every student who comes

to the Hyatt Center (over 5000 this year!) will go home with an Audubon

Adventures newsletter!

A N O T H E R g R E A T C H A N g E !

We welcome Paige Bates, our new Education Chairman!

G R E A T C H A N G E S I N A U D U B O N A D V E N T U R E S By Peggy Baker

A not e f r om P aige—

T hank y ou! I ’m t hr i l l ed t o s er v e a s y our new E d uc at i on C hai r . I ’ m or i g i nal l y f r om P en s ac ol a , and hav e al w a y s w ant ed t o g i v e bac k t o m y c ommuni t y , e s pec i al l y t hr ou g h t he ar ea s o f ed uc at i on and w i l d l i f e. I hav e a B ac hel or ’ s D e g r ee f r om t he U ni v er s i t y o f F l or i d a i n W i l d l i f e E c ol o g y and C on s er v at i on , and am c ur r ent l y w or k i n g on m y M a s t er ’ s D e g r ee i n M at h E d uc at i on. I w a s f or t unat e enou g h t o w or k a s an Aud ubon N at ur al i s t at t he R o y H y at t E nv i r onment al C ent er a f ew y ear s a g o , and t hat po s i t i on i s w hat r eal l y s par k ed m y pa s s i on f or ed uc at i on. S i nc e t hen , I ’ v e been t eac hi n g mi d d l e s c hool mat h and s c i enc e. I ’ m v er y e x c i t ed t o br i n g ev er y t hi n g I ’ v e l ear ned t o t hi s po s i t i on , and I l ook f or w ar d t o w or k i n g w i t h al l o f y ou.

Rht: The dazzln Volet-taled Slph s

a specalt o the western slope o theEdadoran Andes.

Let: The Sword-blled Hmmnbrd,

one o 49 hmmnbrds on the trp, s

astonshn n that t can actall fwth that bll.



made a wonderul discovery this summer while oering a feld archae-

ology lab or the public on the large, breezy porch o the museum

at the Arcadia Mill Archaeological Site in Milton. There is a great, hand-

icapped-accessible boardwalk through the swamp and near Pond Creek,

comparable to the one at the University o West Florida, as well as hiking

trails that cross a hanging bridge over the Creek. The boardwalk is acces-

sible anytime, and early morning walks produce many local breeding birds

singing and nesting now. This should be an excellent place or migrants

during spring and all.

There is signage along the boardwalk explaining the operations that occurred at the site in

the past, as well as tree identifcation signs. I immediately put up a hummingbird eeder on the

porch and there are several Ruby-throated Hummingbird emales coming daily. This is a great

place or a bird or native-plant walk since the boardwalk begins right at the edge o the turn-

around at the end o the street, and you are up away rom chiggers. Tim Roberts, manager o the

site, is very interested in adding the site to the Great Florida Birding Trail and plans to pursue

this goal during the next round o site designations. I am helping him develop a seasonal list o

birds this year that will be available to site visitors. He invites everyone to experience the cultur-

al history as well as the natural history there. Picnic tables are near the boardwalk, but restrooms

are only available when the museum is open.

The Arcadia Mill Site in Milton represents the frst and largest early American water-poweredindustrial complex in Florida. This was a multi-aceted operation with various mills, shops, a

mule-drawn railroad and a sixteen-mile log ume. Although the complex operated only or

38 years (1817-1855), it played a pivotal role in the political and economic development

o Northwest Florida. The mill area was rediscovered in 1964, and when local develop-

ment threatened in 1986, eorts were undertaken to preserve the site and document its

historical signifcance. In 1987 Arcadia was placed on the National Register o Histori-

cal Places. That same year, the Santa Rosa Historical Society, in partnership with the

University o West Florida, initiated a fve-year plan to acquire the site, conduct

historical and archaeological research and to preserve, interpret and develop the

site as an education acility. At the present time there is a small museum on

site (open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.), educational activities such

as tours or schools, and an outdoor exhibit o mill machinery.

It is well worth the 15-minute drive rom the north side o Pen-

sacola. To reach the site, travel east rom Pensacola on Highway

90 toward Milton. As you near Milton, look or the large brown

Arcadia Mill Archaeological Site sign where you will turn let

onto Anna Simpson Road. Follow the signs and continue to

the “T” intersection and take another let on Mill Pond

Lane. Follow the road as it turns right and ends in a turn-

around. The boardwalk is straight ahead. Enjoy!

Skimming by Jan Lloyd

I Exp lo r ing A r cad ia Mi l l

6

Photo by University o West Florida



n WiLDLiFE SANCTuARy RECEiVES TWO BALD EAgLES.

The Wildlie Sanctuary o Northwest Florida has taken in two more

injured Bald Eagles or medical treatment and rehabilitation in hopes

o release back into the wild—the primary goal. The juvenile eaglethat came to the Sanctuary in May will have these new companions,

as they will all be sharing the 100-oot ight cage on the sanctuary

grounds. This ight cage qualifes the acility as one o only nine in

Florida permitted by US Fish and Wildlie or eagle rehabilitation. The

two new eagles are approximately 10 weeks old.

Fish, Fish, Fish...The Sanctuary needs donations o resh whole

fsh (and red meats) or all three eagles as well

as injured seabirds. When you fsh, please

consider dropping by some o your catch.The Sanctuary accepts donations seven days

a week 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is located at 105

North “S” Street near the old Gul Power

building. For more inormation call 850-433-

9453 ext. 5.

N E W S a n d V I E W S

SMIThSOn Ian FIELD Gu IDE TO ThE

BIrDS OF nOrTh aMEr ICa

Edited by Ted Floyd of Birding Magazine, published by Harper Collins, 2008.

The Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is a new generation feld guide. Most birders

own more than one feld guide and like them or dierent reasons. One may be a sentimental avorite,

the frst one, or a special git. Others we like or the completeness o inormation and the accuracy o

detailed drawings—or or our scribbled notes in the margins.

The Smithsonian Field Guide is dierent rom most in two ways: It is illustrated with 2000 expert

photos o 750+ birds and includes a DVD o bird songs o 138 major species. Each bird is illustrated

with several clear photos showing male/emale or adult/juvenile details that help identiy the bird,

such as characteristic behavior. For example: The Cli Swallow is covered by photos o the adult, the

juvenile, in ight rom above and rom below, and a picture o a nesting site. The White-eyed Vireoshows a ull side view and a close-up o eye and bill details. Do the photos make identifcation easier?

I think so, because the colors are as you would see them in nature and the feld marks by which you

distinguish similar species are clearly visible in the high quality photos.

The book also contains range maps, descriptions o habitats and vocalization, characteristic mark-

ings and behavior, and essays covering taxonomy, migration and conservation status. The DVD con-

tains close to 600 songs and calls. You hear alarm calls and territorial songs and regional variations

rom the same species. Each recording has a picture o the bird embedded. Both picture and song can

be downloaded to MP3 players and conveniently taken along in the feld.

Review by Annelse Renert B o o k

R e v i e w

n FROM BOOkS TO TECHNOLOgy…did you bring your feld guide?

iBird Explorer. I you brought your cell phone, iPhone to be specifc,

you can have fngertip access to iBird Explorer. This interactive

program covers 914 North American birds with drawings, photos,range maps, habitat, etc. You access the bird ino by searching the

index or typing the name o the bird. It can even show you a list o

birds similar to your choice. Perhaps its most attractive eature is

the ability to play a recording o the bird’s song—and the songs o

similar birds. The program is based on inormation on WhatBird.com.

Frequent updates supply additional drawings and photos.

—Annelise Reunert

Note: Playing bird calls or songs from devices such as MP3

players and iPhones may successfully bring a bird into

viewing distance. However, excessive use of these devices,

as well as overuse of “pishing,” distresses and disturbs

birds, particularly breeding birds. It’s taxing enough for

birds to compete with one another for territory or mates,and we don’t want to cause them to expend further energy

chasing a competitor that isn’t really there! If your activity

causes a bird to stop what it is doing to respond to you or

your sounds, you are encroaching on its territory, and it’s

appropriate to back off. Judicious use of these wonderful

devices is recommended.

x

x

x

7



C H A P T E R C O N T A C T S

Presidents’ Council Peggy Baker .................934-3242

Jim Brady ....................456-5083

Morris Clark ..................968-5498

Annelise Reunert ..........492-4389

Dana Timmons ..............934-4521

Hyatt Center Committee Jim Brady ....................456-5083

Recording Secretary Jan Lloyd ....................453-1660

Corresponding Secretary Ann Forster ..................456-4421

Publicity Sue Timmons ................934-4521

Treasurer Betsy Tetlow ................438-3703

Membership Annelise Reunert ..........492-4389

Field Trips Morris Clark ..................968-5498Programs Dana Timmons ..............934-4521

Fund Raising Position open ............................

Conservation Lynn Ogden..................512-3187

Education Paige Bates ..................291-6223

Outreach Position open ............................

Skimmer Editor Lucy Duncan ................932-4792

Skimmer Art Director Lynn Gould

Webmaster Debra Jones

Francis M. Weston Audubon Society

P.O. Box 17484Pensacola, FL 32522

NONPROFITORGANIZATION

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August-September 2009 Skimmer Newsletter Francis M. Weston Audubon Society

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