ABA Blog

"The New ABA." Are YOU Ready to Say It?

I framed my "Birding Together" column in the March/April issue of Birding with a joking allusion to the difficulty people often have in uttering those three little words: "I love you."

But the three word phrase that I was finally ready to utter, though not without some lingering trepidation, was, "the new ABA." As I noted in the piece, that's a phrase that I've often heard bandied about, but avoided using myself. Until now. 

You can read the whole column here. As usual, it's well under 1000 words, and so just about average ABA blog post length. 

 

My question for you is this: are you ready to say that we have a new ABA? Or do you think we've still got more ground to make up before we justifiably make that claim? Maybe you think the whole idea is superfluous or flawed, that there's no need for a new ABA, just an ABA for today? Perhaps you think that, as some do, that our goal should be an "old ABA," a return to some earlier era? If that's your belief, what are the key hallmarks of that era?

Let us know in the comments.

Also, the audit for 2012, mentioned in the column, is now available as a PDF on our website.

Whatever your thoughts about the ABA old or new, thank you for your support and for your contributions to the birding community.

Good birding,

Jeff 

 

Video: Releasing a Rosy-Finch; Looking Out for their Future

Michael Hilchey at the crest. Photo ©Raymond VanBuskirk

For many of us there, the high point, altitudinally and ornithologically, of the ABA's recent Albuquerque Rally was visiting the famous rosy-finch banding station at Sandia Crest. Above, you can see Michael Hilchey, one the dedicated crew from Rio Grande Bird Research that keep this valuable and challenging project going. At the far right, the feeder and finch trap are visible.

Below is a shot of Raymond VanBuskirk, another of the rosy-finch researchers, returning a just-banded Black Rosy-Finch to the flock. Check out the concentration on Raymond's face. These guys, along with all the RGBR gang, are fun, dynamic folks. But, boy, do they bring serious attention and care to the work they do. It's a pleasure to witness.

Raymond focussing. Photo ©Jesse Swift

I went up to Sandia the second of the three field trip days. Things started off very well, with single male Gray-crowned and Brown-capped rosy-finches visiting the feeder shortly after we arrived. A bit more waiting and some skillful trap operation, and we were fortunate to see one gorgeous male Brown-capped Rosy-Finch in the hand, a bird which had been banded there some years before.

Raymond VanBuskirk holds "our" Brown-capped Rosy-Finch. This species breeds almost entirely in Colorado. I wonder if it might be one of those that nest on the tundra of Pike's Peak, visible from ABA HQ?

 Once this lovely bird was quickly weighed and measured and otherwise processed, Raymond gave rally participant Pat Blyer the honor of releasing it. I shot a quick video of the event that I thought you'd enjoy.

 

After an eventful and exciting first couple of hours, our patience and cold tolerance got a bit of a workout. Though it was hardly a brutal day on the mountain weather-wise, it was chilly for sure, especially when standing still for long periods. But we still hadn't seen Black Rosy-Finch, ironically the most numerous rosy species wintering at Sandia.

So we waited...

And we waited...

And we huddled in the vans and ate our lunches. Then we waited some more.

But in an instant, the waiting and the cold were forgotten, as a squall of Rosies shot up over the ridge crest and settled in the trees above the feeders.

Rosy-Finches aren't exactly nervous...they can be incredibly confiding sometimes. But boy, are they ever active! We marvelled as the flocked flowed all around the feeders, and we used our newly-honed ID skills to pick out all three species, plus the distinctive gray-faced "Hepburn's" form of Gray-crowned. It was a thrilling couple of minutes.

We left Sandia Crest smiling and headed lower, where the birding was a little warmer and more diverse. But our time at the banding station was really something to treasure. I've known of the Sandia finches since the early 2000's, so getting to see them and the project members in action is something I've waited for quite a while. It was more than worth it.

As great as our time up high with Raymond, Michael, the rosy-finches was, in some ways we learned even more from the presentation they gave to the entire rally group Sunday night. In it, they shared not only some of the exciting discoveries they have made and important questions they are working to answer, but also how much the Sandia flock, both avian and human, has meant to the shape, direction, and quality of their lives. It was inspiring, all the way round.

Speaking of those discoveries and questions, as miraculous as rosy-finches and their extrordinary life histories are, there are many, many reasons to be concerned for their future. Climate change poses an exceptional threat to them, living as many of them do in tiny islets of tundra habitat which are shrinking rapidly. High altitude stocking of non-native trout and other game fish may also be having a serious impact on their survival. And there are the more prosaic but still essential issues of where exactly the rosies that winter at Sandia, their southernmost outpost, come from and go back to.

All of us from the ABA who got to visit with the birds and birders of Albuquerque came away with a deeper appreciation of the vibrant birding scene there. And we wanted to do our small part to help the rosy-finch study and the other ongoing projects of Rio Grande Bird Research continue. 

The final night of our rally, we passed a basket for donations to the finch study, collecting nearly $700 from the ABA audience. On top of that, the ABA donated $1000 to RGBR in support of all the great work they do, which includes not only rosy-finch project, but also banding in the bosque along Albuquerque's Rio Grande, and the painstaking study of Black-throated Warblers done by Ashli Gorbet, another of our primary leaders on this rally, along with her husband, Larry.

I'd like to invite you to participate in all the great times and sound conservation science that is being done by ABA members like Ashli, Michael, and Raymond. If you're able to contribute funds to support their efforts, you can send checks payable to Rio Grande Bird Research. Write Rosy-Finch on the check if you want to restrict your gift to that project. Mail to P.O. Box 6557 Albuquerque NM 87197

And if you'd like to join Raymond and Michael in New Mexico or elsewhere, check out their newly-formed tour company, High Desert Birding Adventures.

Additional info on the history of the rosy-finch project can be found at www.rosyfinch.com. For the most current updates go to the Sandia Rosy-Finch Project Facebook page. Audubon magazine did a great profile on Raymond, Michael, and the rosy-finches that you can read here.

Thanks to all of you in Albuquerque who welcomed the ABA to your patch! We're looking forward to seeing all the great things you'll do in the future.

Some of the RGBR gang at Sandia Crest. From left: Jason Kitting, Steve Cox (another of our core rally leaders and president at RGBR), Mary Ristow, Nancy Cox, Lee Hopwood, Micheal Hilchey, and Raymond VanBuskirk. Thank you ALL for welcoming the ABA! photo ©Jane Kostenko

Thank You and Happy New Year!

"Our" Great Gray Owl, near Kelly, Wyoming Dec 24, 2011

Dear ABA Members,

Greetings from cold, sunny, and beautiful Livingston, Montana!

Liz and I have been on a weeklong trip to the Greater Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Our primary purpose in making the journey was to attend the wedding of our longtime friend, Forrest Rowland, who many of you know as one of the most talented young leaders of our birding community, to the lovely Gabryelle Perkins. And the wedding, which took place Saturday the 29th, was truly beautiful. Seeing friends and families old and new come together in an atmosphere of renewed hope and possibility was a perfect way to close out 2012 and to look to a bright future in 2013 and beyond.

Of course, Liz and I managed to work in some birding, too, as did many of the wedding guests.

Especially memorable was our encounter with a Great Gray Owl—Liz's first!—on Christmas Eve morning near Grand Tetons National Park. Having just reached that point in our morning when we, after hours of searching, had made peace with the idea that we weren't going to find the owl this time out and that we ought to start thinking about procuring some lunch, Liz said, with some emphasis, "STOP! I see it!"

Two very happy birders in the snow. Note the Great Gray Owl atop the tree at the far left.

Standing there, in the falling snow, regarding that magnificent creature in the harsh environment to which it is so superbly adapted, was a magical experience. And it was just one high point.

There were many others, like watching Bohemian Waxwings bathe and drink as they surfed on tiny ice floes in the partly-frozen Yellowstone river. Or seeing clouds of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, Common Redpolls, Snow Buntings and Horned Larks sweeping over the frozen fields.

Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches in flight.

And there were encounters with moose, bison, elk, bighorn sheep, and, most thrillingly, wolves. And gorgeous scenery, friendly people, even a soak in a hot springs pool under a big brilliant moon.

And the thought that has reapeated in my head time and again as we've shared all these wonderful things is this: none of this would have happened to us, had we not been birders.

Of course, even non-birders do things like visiting interesting places, enjoying beautiful scenery, and watching their loved ones get married. But if Liz and I were not birders, though we might have experienced some of the same things we have this week, almost all of them would have been very, very different. Different places. Different scenery. Different friends, even. Being birders has changed everything for the better. And that's true whether we're visiting some far-flung, wild place or just looking out our living room window.

As 2012 ends, I hope that you are having just these kinds of experiences, at home or far afield. That in the short days and long nights of winter, you're still enjoying a world of excitement and rich experience that only those of us who have received the gift of birding are privy to.

On the last day of 2011, I wrote here on the blog, "2012 is going to be a very exciting year at the ABA, when a lot of the seeds that we’ve been planting and carefully tending start to really take root. So while it’s nice to look back over the many good times and successes that we’ve enjoyed in 2011, it’s even more exciting looking to the future. And that is thanks to all of you."

With 2012 completed, it feels wonderful to say that we have indeed had a very successful year indeed here at the ABA, and that our prospects for 2013 are even brighter and more exciting.

Rough-legged Hawks, cold-tolerant as they are, must look forward to the longer, warmer days to come.

And still, it is thanks to you. Thank you for everything you do to support the ABA and to spread the joy and excitement of birding with others.

If you've made a gift to our annual appeal, please know that you've made a crucial difference in our ability to keep the ABA strong and growing. If you haven't yet, there are still a few hours to do so and receive 2012 tax benefits. All online donations made today or mailed donations postmarked today qualify.

Tonight, however you choose to celebrate the arrival of the new year, take a moment with me and be grateful that we all are birders and for the wonderful difference that has made in our lives.

Have a wonderful 2013. Again, thank you.

Good birding,

Jeffrey A. Gordon
President

 

 

The ABA Area Referendum Results: What's Your Take?

 

Back in late July, I posted on this blog asking for discussion of one of the issues we at the ABA are questioned about most frequently: what, if any, expansion of the ABA Area boundaries ought to take place? I also asked for your feedback on how we ought to go about polling our membership for their thoughts. That post has garnered 70 comments so far, many of them astonishingly thoughtful and well-informed. Though I didn't comment on all of them, I did read them all and they were truly helpful in shaping the non-binding referendum that we then sent out with our annual proxy ballot.

Well, the results are in. If you've received the current issue of Birding, and you should very soon if you haven't yet, you may have seen that I reported on your answers in my "Birding Together" column. If you haven't seen the article, or are not yet an ABA member, you can read that column here.

I encourage you to go ahead and give it a read. It's short, and goes through the tallies with a minimum of editorializing.

But blogs, of course, are all about editorializing. And I'd like to hear what you have to say about the results. Are you surprised? Or did things pretty much go the way you expected? Perhaps even more important, in view of what the membership has told us here, what would you like to see happen next?

Should we move immediately to consider the question of annexing Hawaii? What about the other areas? Their addition wasn't favored by a majority. Does that mean they should be removed from further consideration?

One other thing that may help make the results a bit easier to interpret and which there wasn't space for in print: some pie charts. Below, you can see the results as compiled for each of the 4 areas that we specifically asked you about.

A caution. These results, as informative as they may be, don't tell it all. We got dozens of handwritten comments, with a few major themes emerging, as I mentioned in the column. And we have not attempted to do any kind of deeper analysis; e.g., how did people who voted yes on Hawaii vote on Bermuda?, or similar correlations.

So here are those pie charts. Take a look, read the column, and by all means, tell us what you think.

 

 

Video!: Greetings from the Governor and Thank You from the Kids!

George Armistead did a wonderful job earlier today with his photos from the weekend's ABA events in Delaware. As a companion, here are two short videos, one from the Mid-Atlantic Young Birder Conference and one from the Annual Membership Meeting.

First, the Sep 23rd Membership Meeting: when I introduced Collin O'Mara, Delaware's Secretary of Energy and the Environment, he proceeded to play this welcome message from Delaware's Governor, Jack Markell! 

 
It was wonderful to have a head of state welcome the ABA, and birders, so directly and so warmly. Think of it, when have you ever heard a governor even try to pronounce, "dowitcher?" And, of course, I was pleased to be mentioned by name. I think Delaware's Bayshore Initiative, and the way the state is reaching out to birders as the project is still in the planning stages, marks a wonderful evolution. I'm pleased that the ABA is playing a role in moving it all forward and I very much want us to do the same in other states and provinces.

I want to especially thank Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Eagle Optics, ABA's optics sales partner, for providing generous sponsorships for our Membership Meeting, and to the Delaware Nature Society for providing a lovely space for us to have it.

And here's a quick shout-out, literally, to the Leica Sport Optics and to all of you ABA members, from the kids and adults who attended the Mid-Atlantic Young Birder Conference on Saturday the 22nd. I wish you all could have been there. Between George's photos and these clips, maybe you can at least get a feeling for the positive energy directed towards birding and the ABA. Thank you so much for making this all possible.

 

 

Remembering Jeri McMahon

All of us at the American Birding Association are saddened to learn of the death of Jeri McMahon this past Sunday. ABA's Membership Experience Coordinator, Nancy Hawley, worked with Jeri's friends and family to put together this biographic sketch and the special memorial that accompanies it.

Farewell, Jeri. Thanks for your many contributions to the birding community. May the sights and sounds of birds, and the thrill of young eyes being opened to them, keep your memory alive in all our hearts.

—Jeffrey Gordon                

Jeri McMahon, birder

Jeri started birding at 12 years old in northern Iowa. Her first bird guide book was by Chester A. Reed. Two teachers (the Hagarty sisters) lived on her block, and Jeri would spend hours at their house, studying birds at their feeders or bird bath, or reading all their bird books. She birded all 7 continents and when asked about her bird list, she would say she had about 7000 birds on it. 

Jeri in Brazil

Jeri belonged to the American Birding Association, Indian Nations Audubon Society of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Ornithological Society, The Bluebird Association, and the Arkansas Birding Association. She had served as president and bird recorder for Indian Nations Audubon and as President and awards chair for the OOS.  

At the OOS fall meeting, Stillwater

She banded birds with MAPS at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge as well as Fort Gibson Wildlife Management Area and also banded bluebirds in Muskogee County. Jeri was a map consultant for Oklahoma in the Sibley Guide to Birds and also made contributions to the Peterson Field Guide to Birds.

She headed up the Christmas Bird Count for the Fort Gibson area, lead many field trips for birding, and headed up Eagle Days in Fort Gibson for years and introduced her grandson, Donnie, and several other children to the fun of birding.

 

Jeri's grandson, Donnie

 

Jeri has sent one child per year to birding camp, which she found to be one of the best and most meaningful ways to share the joy of birding. 

In Jeri's final weeks, another long-time ABA member, Kathy Roach, approached the ABA about setting up a special memorial to Jeri that would help fund other young birders attendence at birding camps. As one of Jeri’s closest friends, Kathy says, “We feel Jeri is certainly worthy of being honored for her life-long love of birds as well as her patience and mentoring to all of us her knew her. In addition, Jeri provided both physical and financial support over the years, to many of our Young Birders. Her outstanding dedication has helped many of our youth to expand their knowledge and gain confidence, as well as allowing many of them to attend our ABA birding camps”. 

Kathy adds, “The ABA’s new "Jeri McMahon Memorial" will help maintain and expand all future Young Birder programs and camps. We feel this is a very special honor for a very special lady.”

Jeri lived a life of giving back to birding that all of us would do well to emulate.

To make your donation to Jeri's memorial now, please go to www2.aba.org/jerimcmahon or call Nancy Hawley at 800-850-2473 or 719-578-9703.

2012 Proxy Update (And What To Do If Yours Hasn't Arrived)

By now, all active ABA members should have received a 2012 ABA proxy ballot, along with a letter from me and Board Chair, Lou Morrell. That ballot also includes the non-binding referendum on possible expansion of the ABA Area, as well as an invitation to what is shaping up to be a very interesting and informative annual membership meeting.

And the letter has some pretty interesting news, too—news about our growing membership numbers, about how you can now claim a large percentage of your ABA membership dues as a tax deduction, and about a special deal on membership renewals, for starters.

The ballots and letters were mailed here in Colorado on Friday, August 24. We do use non-profit mailing rates (not bulk rate, that's different and slower) whenever possible, which save a lot of money. However, the delivery schedule can be, shall we say erratic. Many people in Colorado and New Mexico, including all of us at HQ, received the mailing the next day. By the middle of the following week, they had begun reaching the US Great Lakes states and Pacific Northwest. And by the end of that week, we were already seeing dozens of completed ballots returning to us.

 

Taken yesterday, September 10, this is just the last four days' worth of filled out proxy ballots! Counting them will be a lot of work, but it's work we're happy to do. We really do want to hear from you! photo ©Liz Gordon

But as gratifying as the flood of responses has been and though the letters have by now been received as far away as Australia, there are still members who report not yet receiving them, including ironically, Lou Morrell, who lives in a remote little hamlet called New York City. If you are one of these members, we apologize, and we would still would very much like to hear from you.

Here's what you can do. Go to aba.org/proxy12. There, you'll find links to download both the letter and the proxy ballot. You'll also find useful additional information about the membership meeting and voting your proxy.

To cast your ballot, simply print out the ballot pdf, vote, sign it, and return it to: ABA Proxy, 1618 W. Colorado Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80904 by September 21. Note that we'll only be able to count votes for the election of board members received on or before the 21st. However, since the ABA Area referendum is non-binding, we have a bit more leeway on timing there. We'll go ahead and tabulate responses on the area question received on or before September 30.

And of course, you must be an active ABA member for your vote to be counted. (Technically, members only expire the last day of odd-numbered months. So if your membership didn't expire on or before July 31, you were sent a proxy and are eligible to vote.)

In these ways, we're hoping to be able to have the participation of just as many of you as we can. An effective, dynamic membership organization needs regular input from its members. I'm thrilled that we've had such good response rate to this year's and last year's ballots, a stark and refreshing change from the anemic turnouts of the several years prior. 

Thanks to all of our members for supporting the ABA and for taking the time to participate in its governance and direction. It makes all the difference. 

We hope you've gotten one of these already...if not, there's still time to download the pdf and send in your vote.

 

Scenes From Mel and Jeanne's 600th Party!

Yesterday, we had a great open mic post from Mel Goff, our volunteer librarian. In it, he recounted his recent trip with his wife, Jeanne, to Alaska.

 

Mel Goff, ABA's volunteer librarian, as we're used to seeing him every Wednesday

If you read Mel's post (and if you haven't, go do it!) you know that the Goffs had a very special milestone on their cruise: their 600th ABA Area life bird. So we thought that a little congratulatory celebration was in order. 

 

 

If you can take your eye off the chocolate cake long enough, look at that box. What could be in it?

Here's a quick video of Mel and Jeanne opening their special gift. 

 

 

 

A shot of the happy couple.

 

Leach's Storm-Petrel ornament painted by Marcia Poling. Even got the tube on the nose!

Ted, Michael, and Ned, I'll save you the trouble...she missed the hyphen in Storm-Petrel. Mel, maybe you can add that in? Pretty darn cool otherwise, huh?

Thanks so much, Mel, for your service to the ABA. You're a credit to our community and we're just thrilled to have you as part of the ABA family. Now, get to work on that 700!

Pledge to Fledge: The Best Thing You Can Do This Weekend

 

School children in Wilderness, Western Cape, South Africa earlier today participating in Pledge to Fledge. Photo courtesy Keith Barnes.

It's August 24, the first day of the first Pledge to Fledge event. If you've somehow missed the buzz surrounding this event, take a look at Richard Crossley's post here from last week. Also check the P2F website and Facebook page, where there is already quite a bit of material up from last night's kickoff event in Cape May, as well as some cool shots of Keith Barnes' efforts to fledge some new birders in South Africa. No doubt there will be much more to come.

I'm especially encoraged to see Pledge to Fledge emerge now, as I think it represents an important evolution in birding culture. Though I've often heard birders decry the lack of "new blood" coming into our community, I've rarely seen much in the way of focussed efforts to do something about it. Don't get me wrong—I know we've all stood at tables, gone to various events, and so on in hopes of minting some new birders. These are laudable efforts and they haven't been wholly unsuccessful.

But I think what is needed is an almost complete overhaul in how we recruit and I see Pledge to Fledge as an important step in that direction. Putting it in birding terms, we have to get as good at finding, identifying and sparking new birders as we have gotten at finding, identifying and spreading the word of vagrant birds.

Think how much time, effort, and ingneuity has been put into learing the habits, habitats, hotspots, weather patterns, and search techniques involved in ferreting out rare birds. Where these efforts have been most successful, they've involved shifting our frame of reference, dropping our old behavior patterns and learning to think like like the wayward birds we seek.

When I started birding the Mid-Atlantic in the mid-1970's, early November was considered a sort of lull between the peak of hawk migration and the peak of waterfowl migration. Not too much to see then, the thinking went. Now, thanks to the efforts of Paul Lehman and dozens of others like him, early November is recognized as perhaps the most exciting, productive time of the year, if finding Mid-Atlantic vagrants is your thing. And our expectations of what's possible then, in terms of numbers and diversity have been exceeded time and again.

What I'm really excited about in the coming years is helping the ABA get just that good at reaching and sparking new birders. There's much to be learned about where we can find them, how they behave, and what conditions set the stage for that magical conversion experience. I think we're not that far from a day when how good a day we've had in the field will be measured not only by how many species we found but also by the number of new birders we recruited.

As a community, we have so, so much to learn about how best to do this. And there's no substitue for getting out there and just giving it a whirl, refining what works and sidelining what doesn't. And the fact that so many others will be doing the same thing this weekend, gives us all a great opportunity to share our triumphs and our tribulations.

 

Liz shares her bins, and a view of a Prairie Falcon, with a birder-to-be at Garden of the Gods.

Liz and I have already got at least one spot picked out where we'll go birding for new birders this weekend: Garden of the Gods. It's a big tourist attraction, so there are plenty of people around, almost none of them there for birding. But there are nifty birds to look at, usually including Prairie Falcons. And a spotting scope set up in a place like that always draws a crowd, and the inevitable, "Whatcha lookin' at?," conversation openers. I think it's an ideal place to practice our recruitment skills.

How about you? Where might you spend an hour or two this weekend and snag a new birder or two? A local park with a duck pond? Maybe a zoo that has wild but relatively tame birds wandering the grounds? Remember, you don't need rare birds to do this. You want close birds, preferably lots of them. Don't worry if it's starlings or magpies. They'll work.

ABA board member Kenn Kaufman and Kim Kaufman, director of the Ohio's Black Swamp Bird Observatory, have a nice post on their blog with tips on taking new birders birding. It's worth a look as you're making your plans.

Mainly, remember to be friendly and enjoy yourself. Birding is a wonderful thing. Let's all get as good as we can at securing its future by growing our ranks.

So take the Pledge. Then get out there! Make sure your Bird of the Year stickers are in place and wear your ABA logo wear, if you have it. And be sure to tell us what you discover!



 

 

ABA Debuts Birding News!

 

Since the early 1990’s at least, birders have been sharing news via e-mail subscription lists. These lists were a great way to keep up with the birding scene in a given region. But they weren’t always the most convenient things to work with, especially if you just wanted to check in on what’s going on in a region but didn't want to go through the process of subscribing, figuring out settings, managing e-mail flow, and so on.

Enter Jack Siler and Birdingonthe.net. Jack is a Philadelphia birder and ABA member who long ago saw a need for a single place where all these user-generated news feeds could be aggregated and easily accessed. Nothing like that existed, so Jack, who isn't officially a web programmer, went ahead and built it himself. His groundbreaking site, especially the BirdMail page, quickly became one of the most heavily trafficked and most beloved birding spots on the entire world wide web.

And for years, Jack has maintained the site with incredible dedication and attention to detail on which thousands have come to rely. But the time has come for Jack to move on to other things including, we hope, getting a well-deserved break from tending these particular fires.

We’re thrilled that Jack has honored us by passing the torch of his inspired marshalling of local, regional, national and international birding mail lists to the American Birding Association. The result is ABA's Birding News (birding.aba.org). We’ve worked hard and are working hard to preserve Jack’s vision while building an entirely new site that incorporates the expanded possibilites of rapidly evolving web technology. We hope you're as excited by the initial results and the possibilites for the future as we are.

We have updated the inner workings of the site, allowing us to archive more messages on each list (30 day’s worth, instead of just a couple dozen), and to filter the messages so you can easily see reports of rarities based on the ABA checklist codes. Additionally, we’ve plugged in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, so you can easily share messages that you find interesting, funny, provocative, or otherwise worthwhile with a huge audience that would have been highly unlikely to see them previously.

We at the ABA have always believed that the birding community is an immense storehouse of incredibly valuable and hard-won knowledge. And that birders know an awful lot about how to have a good time, plus some great stories of having some not-so-good times. We've always tried to shape and curate that knowledge and experience into useful things like the ABA/Lane Birdfinding Guides. Birding News is an attempt to do the same thing for the millions of bytes of birding information that go winging around the web every day. We want to make it all easier, more useful, and more fun.

The best part is, this is only the beginning. We can't wait to see what you, the birding community, make of Birding News. We promise to keep making it better, responding to your comments and suggestions, learning together as we all move forward. It's what birders do, after all.

We'll be talking a lot more, here and elsewhere, about Birding News. For now, go on over and have a look around. We think you're going to like what you see.

The address is easy. Say it with me: BIRDING dot ABA dot ORG! birding.aba.org Remember it. Visit it. Bookmark it, and the individual lists you visit often. And tell your friends.

Special congratulations are due to ABA's David Hartley and Greg Neise for their painstaking work setting this all up. They were aided by a succession of contract programmers, especially Greg Mahoney and Andy Sheppard. Thanks, too, to Carrie Hartley for a fresh but classic new look.

And finally, once again, thank you Jack Siler! For your hard work, your creativity, and your involvement in the birding community. We can't begin to express our gratitude that you've trusted the ABA with your baby. We aim to make you, and all birders, proud.