A Message from the President

"Feathered Friends": Spectacular Photographs

Audubon Adventures

Education Kits for Youth

Thank You

Help Needed!

Newsletter Survey Results

Visit Healdsburg's Swift Roost

Observations

Midweek Walkabout Results

Field Trip Report

The To-Do List

Know Your White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys

Pee Wee Audubon: Revels with Reptiles

Through the Garden Gate: Black-headed Grosbeak

Welcome New Members

A Message from the President

by Joannie Dranginis

GREETINGS TO EACH OF YOU as Madrone Audubon begins a new year!

The Board of Directors is fresh from a summer planning session at the Bouverie Preserve where ideas were exchanged on a number of topics. Of special interest was a presentation by Bill Payne and Bob Evans on the year's goals for Audubon's Mayacamas Mountain Sanctuary. These plans include more field trips, the development of hiking trails, and habitat restoration in some key locations.

Another Madrone priority for the coming year is helping to protect and restore the Russian River watershed, which is critical to migratory songbirds.

Potential new environmental education programs were discussed, one focusing on projects for high school students, and one on residential landscaping to attract birds. We remain strongly committed to our growing Audubon Adventures and Pee Wee Audubon programs.

A high point of the meeting was a report from co-editors Judy Burness and Malcolm Blanchard that the Madrone Leaves took third place in National Audubon's 1998 chapter newsletter contest, in the category of Very Large Chapters. We were surpassed only by Seattle and San Diego nationwide! Of course this only confirms what we already knew to be true based on the positive results of our Spring Readership Survey (report on page 3). Many thanks to those who participated in the survey, inspiring our resourceful editors to do even better!

Few developments have occurred recently pertaining to the Audubon vs. City of Santa Rosa lawsuit. The City is just completing a study of a new Geysers pipeline route that would for the most part avoid the Mayacamas Sanctuary. It remains to be seen if this alternate route will prove satisfactory both to the City and to Audubon after the details of the study have been scrutinized by both sides. We hope to see the whole matter of the pipeline route resolved sometime this fall.

As the new year unfolds, I hope you will take advantage of what your local Audubon chapter has to offer and think of contributing some of your time. If you've been holding back, come out for a field trip, a general meeting or a committee meeting that interests you. It's true that your membership alone helps support our chapter activities. But activities need people to assist, and Madrone Audubon has a life of its own which benefits from your care and attention.