Every winter and spring, Roaring Fork Audubon presents free educational programs to the public

          Roaring Fork Audubon Society Fall/Winter Programs
 
                                                     2012

In an effort to reach more nature enthusiasts,  Roaring Fork Audubon will be joining forces with Wilderness Workshop and ACES, (Aspen Center for Environmental Studies), for their Naturalists Nights this winter!  These are Audubon’s bird contributions, and the link to the entire series.        Aspennature.org/programs/winter-spring/naturalist-nights

The programs are FREE and start at 5:30 in Carbondale at the 3rd St. Center and the Aspen programs start at 7:30 and will be at ACES. If you have any questions, please contact Mary Harris at smnharris@gmail.com

FEB 8TH Wednesday – Carbondale
FEB 9th Thursday – Aspen

BLACK SWIFTS – A.K.A. “THE COOLEST BIRD” With Kim Potter’s  new information, about their wintering grounds in South America, conservation activities can include protection of their critical habitat.

Black Swifts undergo an extraordinary migrational journey. Twice a year Black Swifts travel thousands of miles between their breeding grounds in North America and their winter habitat in the Neotropics. Although we know where Black Swifts breed, until very recently, we did not know where these swifts spend the winter.

Black Swifts are a bird of conservation concern; discovering where they breed and where they winter is essential to conserving the habitats upon which they depend. We are fortunate to have these birds breed in the Roaring Fork Valley, and now, thanks to local bird researcher, Kim Potter, we know where at least some of these birds spend the winter. With funding help from Roaring Fork Audubon, Kim outfitted swifts with transmitters which enabled her to follow them on their migration. She gained valuable information about where they winter, which can be as far away as the Andes of Peru, something not known until this study.

We know that these swifts have a very specific and narrow range of breeding habitat requirements and a unique breeding biology – for instance, they only locate their nests on sheer cliffs near waterfalls or dripping caves.

 
APRIL 4TH Wednesday – Carbondale
APRIL 5th Thursday – Aspen
AMERICAN DIPPERS: INDICATORS OF OUR RIVER’S HEALTH
This presentation by Dee Malone and the Roaring Fork Conservancy will cover the Dipper’s role in helping us learn about healthy streams.

Dippers are the songbird of the stream. Also known as a Water Ouzel, they dip and dive, intertwining their lives with the rhythm of the stream and are called the canary of the waterways – an indicator of a river’s health. The Dipper thrives only where water quality is high enough to support the bird’s food sources. Water insects are among the first life to disappear as a result of stream pollution.  

Perfectly evolved with rapidly flowing, high mountain streams-from white-feathered eyelids, with which they blink out a sort of Morse Code communication with other dippers, to very large and strong feet which allow them to walk underwater on slippery cobbles – their adaptations can inform us about stream health.