Free email delivery
Please sign up for email delivery in the subscription area to the right.
No salesman will call, at least not from us. Maybe from someone else.
Malibu Lagoon bird walks: 8:30 & 10am Sunday, 23 November, 2025
and the photographer barely escapes with his nose intact
(Chris Tosdevin 11/25/24)
[Chuck Almdale]
Pacific Coast Highway: It’s much harder to confirm a road is open than closed. As far as I can tell, all lanes on all routes into Malibu are open, but speed limits between Santa Monica and Malibu are 25 MPH in certain places and the police ARE issuing speeding tickets in an attention-getting manner.
If you learn differently about closures, let me know.
So… SMBAS lagoon trips (8:30am general and 10am parents & kids) are happening.
Lots of migrants and wintering birds and dwindling crowds of humans make it a great day for the lagoon. Usually sunny, sometimes cool, with dolphins dancing upon the waves. Forget those Thanksgiving table birds: see your birds here with us. A possible Vega Gull and a large flock of White Pelicans have recently been seen.
Some of the great birds we’ve had in November are:
Green-winged Teal, Lesser Scaup, Surf Scoter, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Merganser, Pacific & Common Loons, Horned & Western Grebes, Osprey, American Kestrel, Merlin, Snowy Plover, American Avocet, Spotted Sandpiper, Marbled Godwit, Boneparte’s & Glaucous-winged Gulls, Belted Kingfisher, Common Raven, Bushtit, Bewick’s, House & Marsh Wrens, California Towhee, Great-tailed Grackle, Lesser Goldfinch.
Weather prediction as of 19 November:
Sunny, cool. Temp: 55-65°, Wind: NE 6 mph, Clouds: 25%>15%, rain: 0%
Tide: near-high, then falling: Low: 2.79 ft. @ 3:13am; Low: +5.46 ft. @ 9:39am.
Oct 26 trip report link
Adult Walk 8:30 a.m., 4th Sunday of every month. Adults, teens and children you deem mature enough to be with adults. Beginners and experienced, 2-3 hours, meeting at the metal-shaded viewing area between parking lot and channel. Species range from 35 in June to 60-75 during migrations and winter. We move slowly and check everything as we move along. When lagoon outlet is closed we may continue east around the lagoon to Adamson House. We put out special effort to make our monthly Malibu Lagoon walks attractive to first-time and beginning birdwatchers. So please, if you are at all worried about coming on a trip and embarrassing yourself because of all the experts, we remember our first trips too. Someone showed us the birds; now it’s our turn. Bring your birding questions.
Children and Parents Walk, 10:00 a.m., 4th Sunday of every month: One hour session, meeting at the metal-shaded viewing area between parking lot and channel. We start at 10:00 for a shorter walk and to allow time for families to get it together on a sleepy Sunday morning. Our leaders are experienced with kids so please bring them to the beach! We have an ample supply of binoculars that children can use without striking terror into their parents. We want to see families enjoying nature. (If you have a Scout Troop or other group of more than seven people, you must call Jean (213-522-0062) to make sure we have enough binoculars, docents and sand.)
Directions: Malibu Lagoon is at the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Cross Creek Road, west of Malibu Pier and the bridge, 15 miles west of Santa Monica via PCH. We gather in the metal-shaded area near the parking lot. Look around for people wearing binoculars. Neither Google Maps nor the State Park website supply a street address for the parking lot. The address they DO supply is for Adamson House which is just east of the Malibu Creek bridge.
Parking: Parking machine recently installed in the lagoon lot: 1 hr $3; 2 hrs $6; 3 hrs $9, all day $12 ($11 seniors); credit cards accepted. Annual passes accepted. You may also park (read the signs carefully) either along PCH west of Cross Creek Road, on Cross Creek Road, or on Civic Center Way north (inland) of the shopping center. Lagoon parking in shopping center lots is not permitted.
[Written & posted by Chuck Almdale]
Birds & Butterflies: Malibu Creek State Park, 8 Nov 2025
[Written by Jean Garrett; Photos by Marie Barnidge-McIntyre, Ray Juncosa & Chris Tosdevin, edited by Chuck Almdale]
(Chris Tosdevin 11-8-25)
The American Snout Butterfly is far less common in the west than in the east (see below). Butterflies and Moths has a nice write-up this medium-small butterfly (1 3/8 – 2″) wingspan, with much the same information on Wikipedia. Most of us have never seen this butterfly before.
(link to interactive map at ButterfliesandMoths.org)
It was a cool day that eventually warmed up for our group of nine people. We were first greeted by several Juncos with one having pink flanks but there were no blackish lores so all hope of a “Pink-sided” Junco was dashed. The sounds of Acorn Woodpeckers serenaded us throughout the day as they always do at Malibu Creek.
Looking over to the west of the meadow gave us 3 Western Bluebirds. Then looking back to the Juncos we saw that some House Finches and one Purple Finch had joined them along with a White-throated Sparrow with a strongly outlined throat (it has been seen previously this fall at Malibu Creek).
(Marie Barnidge-McIntyre 11-8-25)
As you can see from the map below, White-throated Sparrows have a wide breeding range across Canada and New England. As with many other North American passerines, their southward migration is typically east of the Rocky Mountains. Occasionally, especially in southwestern Canada, they fly over the ridges to the west side of the mountains and wind up spending the winter along the American west coast from southern Washington to the Mexican boarder.
For some reason, they seem reluctant to spend the winter south of the border and west of Big Bend, Texas, which may be an artifact of the lack of people noticing their presence; they are easily confused with the far more common White-crowned Sparrows.
(Ray Juncosa 11-8-25)
Walking along the meadow into the forest gave us a leucistic Red-tail Hawk that was somewhat expected since it has been seen previously on several occasions by some in our group. The White-crowned Sparrows with their distinctive mournful song accompanied us as we saw a Great Blue Heron busy hunting near the river.
An opening in the forest gave us some Lesser Goldfinches, Mourning Dove, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. The Hermit Thrush was on the floor of the forest and 2 American Kestrels were overhead in the trees.
Walking back towards the meadow, the Downy Woodpecker was seen crawling up trunk of a tree and then 6 Nanday Parakeets flew overhead. Heading into the forest north of the meadow, the Wrentit trilled while we carefully looked at some Kingbirds and determined they were Cassin’s. As we looked behind us, there was the lovely site of a flock of about 60 Rock Pigeons. Spotted Towhees were in the bushes with a White-breasted Nuthatch working a tree and at last a Red-breasted Sapsucker was found.
In the grass we found a Golden-crowned Sparrow, which we see far less often than the abundant White-crowned Sparrows. This made it a three-Zonotrichia day, an uncommon event.
(Chris Tosdevin 11-8-25)
All in all we did not do badly for a quiet day. We got 50 species and it was a pleasant sunny day in the fall.
| Malibu Creek State Park | |||||
| Field Trips | 11/8/25 | 6/14/25 | 5/11/24 | 11/12/11 | 11/13/10 |
| American Wigeon | 2 | ||||
| Mallard | 14 | 10 | 5 | 20 | 15 |
| Ring-necked Duck | 1 | ||||
| Bufflehead | 2 | ||||
| California Quail | 20 | ||||
| Pied-billed Grebe | 1 | ||||
| Band-tailed Pigeon | 6 | 4 | 6 | 80 | 12 |
| Mourning Dove | 10 | 19 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
| Feral Pigeon | 60 | ||||
| White-throated Swift | 5 | 20 | |||
| Black-chinned Hummer | 2 | ||||
| Anna’s Hummingbird | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Allen’s Hummingbird | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hummingbird sp. | 1 | ||||
| American Coot | 1 | 20 | 15 | ||
| Killdeer | 1 | ||||
| Double-crested Cormorant | 1 | 1 | |||
| Snowy Egret | 6 | ||||
| Green Heron | 2 | ||||
| Great Egret | 1 | ||||
| Great Blue Heron | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Turkey Vulture | 3 | 10 | 10 | ||
| White-tailed Kite | 2 | 2 | |||
| Cooper’s Hawk | 2 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Northern Harrier | 1 | ||||
| Red-shouldered Hawk | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Belted Kingfisher | 1 | 1 | |||
| Red-naped Sapsucker | 1 | ||||
| Red-breasted Sapsucker | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Acorn Woodpecker | 16 | 20 | 15 | 8 | 15 |
| Downy Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Nuttall’s Woodpecker | 5 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 1 |
| Northern Flicker | 3 | 1 | 5 | 2 | |
| American Kestrel | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| Nanday Parakeet | 4 | 11 | 8 | H | |
| Cassin’s Kingbird | 5 | 2 | |||
| Western Wood-Pewee | X | ||||
| Western Flycatcher | 3 | 4 | |||
| Black Phoebe | 2 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| Say’s Phoebe | 1 | 3 | 2 | ||
| Ash-throated Flycatcher | 9 | 5 | |||
| Cassin’s Kingbird | 4 | 2 | |||
| Hutton’s Vireo | 2 | 1 | |||
| Loggerhead Shrike | 2 | 1 | |||
| California Scrub-Jay | 10 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 6 |
| American Crow | 30 | 6 | 10 | 30 | 30 |
| Common Raven | 6 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 10 |
| Oak Titmouse | 10 | 22 | 10 | 20 | 12 |
| Tree Swallow | X | ||||
| Violet-green Swallow | 6 | 1 | |||
| Northern Rough-winged Swallow | 20 | 5 | |||
| Barn Swallow | 3 | ||||
| Cliff Swallow | 10 | 20 | |||
| Bushtit | 8 | 50 | 10 | 15 | 15 |
| Wrentit | 4 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 8 | 4 | 3 | ||
| White-breasted Nuthatch | 1 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 6 |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 7 | 3 | |||
| Canyon Wren | 3 | 1 | |||
| No. House Wren | 3 | 11 | 12 | 1 | 3 |
| Bewick’s Wren | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||
| California Thrasher | 2 | ||||
| Western Bluebird | 5 | 8 | 2 | 20 | 1 |
| Hermit Thrush | 4 | ||||
| American Robin | 1 | ||||
| Phainopepla | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||
| House Finch | 8 | 10 | 10 | 30 | 4 |
| Purple Finch | 2 | 6 | 2 | ||
| Pine Siskin | 5 | ||||
| Lesser Goldfinch | 6 | 10 | 10 | 1 | |
| Lark Sparrow | 20 | ||||
| Dark-eyed Junco | 8 | 4 | 8 | 30 | 12 |
| White-crowned Sparrow | 24 | 40 | 20 | ||
| Golden-crowned Sparrow | 2 | ||||
| White-throated Sparrow | 1 | ||||
| Song Sparrow | 1 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 |
| California Towhee | 8 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 4 |
| Spotted Towhee | 2 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 4 |
| Yellow-breasted Chat | 2 | 1 | |||
| Hooded Oriole | 2 | ||||
| Bullock’s Oriole | 4 | ||||
| Red-winged Blackbird | 10 | 1 | |||
| Brown-headed Cowbird | 4 | 3 | |||
| Orange-crowned Warbler | 1 | 8 | 5 | ||
| Common Yellowthroat | 2 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| Yellow Warbler | 8 | 12 | |||
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | 8 | X | 40 | 40 | |
| Townsend’s Warbler | 1 | X | |||
| Wilson’s Warbler | X | ||||
| Western Tanager | 2 | ||||
| Black-headed Grosbeak | 2 | ||||
| Blue Grosbeak | 2 | ||||
| Lazuli Bunting | 6 | 1 | |||
| Total Species: 94 | 50 | 65 | 47 | 47 | 48 |
Sierra Club’s Current Problems
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
On November 7, 2025 the New York Times published an article entitled The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart, written by David Fahrenthold and Claire Brown. The club, more than a century old and beloved by millions, always a defender and promoter of the outdoors, doesn’t come off too well, to put it lightly.
I’m not going to write much about this situation here for reasons I won’t go into. Instead I’ll give you some links to articles written by others. Hopefully they’ll stay open for you to read. I don’t have a subscription to NYT and google couldn’t provide me with a free link to the article, but I came across a link in another article that may continue to work. Those with a NYT subscription can undoubtedly find it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/us/politics/sierra-club-social-justice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zk8.s4Tz.sWdkCspnaIh8&smid=url-share
Lead paragraphs:
The Sierra Club calls itself the “largest and most influential grass roots environmental organization in the country.” But it is in the middle of an implosion — left weakened, distracted and divided just as environmental protections are under assault by the Trump administration.
The group has lost 60 percent of the four million members and supporters it counted in 2019. It has held three rounds of employee layoffs since 2022, trying to climb out of a $40 million projected budget deficit.
Its political giving has also dropped. Federal campaign-finance records show $3.6 million in donations from the Sierra Club during the push to defeat Donald J. Trump in 2020, but none as Mr. Trump stormed back to the presidency in 2024.
And this year, as the Trump administration returned better organized and better prepared than in its first term, the Sierra Club was the opposite. While Mr. Trump boosted coal power, canceled wind farms and rolled back pollution limits, the club was consumed by internal chaos, culminating when the board fired its executive director, Ben Jealous, a former president of the N.A.A.C.P.
Among the numerous commentaries on the situation and the NYT article is one by Jerry Coyne, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago and author of several bestsellers including Why Evolution is True (2009), a book I highly recommend. On his blog of the same name is his article Social Justice Wrecks the Sierra Club (11-14-25)
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/11/14/social-justice-wrecks-the-sierra-club/
Lead paragraph:
This happens over and over again. It happened with the Southern Poverty Law Center. It happened with the ACLU. It happened with the Audubon Society [emphasis added]. And now it’s happening with the Sierra Club. What is happening? An organization with a narrowly defined but admirable mission cannot resist the ideological Zeitgeist, and embraces social justice precepts that are not universally accepted. The organization becomes riven with controversy, and it erodes, becoming damaged. (This also happened with Scientific American, remember?)
What the Hell Happened to the Sierra Club? appeared on the Legal Planet website on Nov 14. The writer, Jonathan Zasloff, provides an interesting perspective as a leftist who has worked in leftist organizations.
https://legal-planet.org/2025/11/14/what-the-hell-happened-to-the-sierra-club/
From the article:
I encountered this when I was a “Global Justice Fellow” at the American Jewish World Service ten years ago. Although the organization purported to foster broad principles of democracy and liberalism, staff was much further to the Left. We were advocating for changes in USAID (z”l) policies concerning the empowerment of women, and I suggested to our consultant that one way to reach Republican support was to pitch it as a way to fight sex trafficking. He was enthusiastic. But absolutely not, according to staff. Why? Because fighting “sex trafficking” meant that we would somehow not be respectful of sex workers. (We saw this in the NYT piece when the Sierra Club stopped using the phrase “lame duck” because it was disrespectful to the disabled).
From Reason (Free minds and free markets: Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent) comes The Sierra Club Went Woke and Now Is Going Broke (Nov 8), written by Jonathan H. Adler, whose name rings a vague bell.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/11/08/the-sierra-club-went-woke-and-now-is-going-broke/
From the article:
While the Sierra Club’s leadership disputes the Times‘ analysis, the story makes a compelling case that as the Club’s attempted to become more “woke”–to integrate broader concerns about racial justice, gender equity, and so on–it lost focus and support, drove away longtime supporters and volunteers. But according to the Club’s leadership, the real problem is that those concerned about the environment became complacent after Joe Biden was elected, and the ability of supporters to give to the organization was hampered by broader economic conditions.
As the Times recounts, after Trump’s first election, the Club sought to broaden its base by appealing to a wider range of progressive policy concerns, as well as to make its own operations more equitable. Among other things, it supported and buttressed the employee union, which increased the organization’s labor costs substantially. But that was not all.
1. It issued an “equity language guide,” which warned employees to be cautious about using the words “vibrant” and “hardworking,” because they reinforced racist tropes. “Lame duck session” was out, because “lame” was offensive. Even “Americans” should be avoided, the guide said, because it excluded non-U. S. citizens.
2. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the group called for defunding the police and providing reparations for slavery.
3. The club even turned on its own founder, John Muir, with Mr. Brune saying the environmental icon had used “deeply harmful racist stereotypes” in his writings about Native Americans and Black people in the 1860s.
Mr. Mair, who had been the group’s first Black board president, wrote a rebuttal defending the founder. The Sierra Club refused to publish it, and censured him when he published it elsewhere. “Do we want to still be the Sierra Club anymore?” Mr. Mair said he thought at the time.
This was apparently a reasonable question, as the organization, for a time, seemed more focused on investing in priorities other than environmental protection.
This is a good spot to insert a link to the Sierra Club’s Equity Language Guide.
I find reading things like this to be a mixture of enlightening, discouraging, frightening and humorous.
https://smbasblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/32cff-sierraclubequitylanguageguide2018.pdf
From the Guide:
Use the term “cisgender” (rather than “non-trans” or “non-transgender”) to refer to a person who is not transgender, if there is a need to refer to their gender. Cisgender means you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth.
Messaging around sexual and reproductive rights is a particularly sensitive issue because environmental groups, including many members and leaders of the Sierra Club, have used concern about “overpopulation” as a pseudo-scientific justification for racist and xenophobic policies to limit both immigration and reproductive freedom. The Sierra Club has made an intentional shift away from this
legacy with our current focus on gender and rights.
My last suggestion is to simply read some of the comments on Reddit, a site which combines intelligence, information, wisdom, humor, nonsense and idiocy in unequal proportions. I found this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ezraklein/comments/1or1dbg/the_sierra_club_embraced_social_justice_then_it/
A few comments:
“…but looking back I see a lot more examples like the Sierra Club: orgs that sort of lost the plot because they were trying to either appease their young staff members or be part of the racial justice zeitgeist. My favorite anecdote was talking to someone who was part of an international animal welfare organization who was requiring their foreign subsidiaries to explain how they were addressing anti-black racism….and “we don’t have many black people in lithuania” was not an acceptable answer.”
–Reddit–
Ms. Malone thought that someone else in the chapter had filed a complaint. She recalled an incident when a club staff member had scolded her for saying that the club should lobby Colorado’s legislature for more protections for wolves.
“One of the staff said, ‘That’s fine, Delia. But what do wolves have to do with equity, justice and inclusion?’” Ms. Malone said.
–Reddit–
“The entire discourse around environmentalism is so toxic and poisoned anymore, it’s just pointless to even discuss it.
It doesn’t matter the person, the organization, or the issue – it will be criticized and torn down. So and so was racist, so and so is an old white guy, that group are just NIMBY Boomers, that group hates nuclear, those people are all gatekeepers and colonist, etc.
My favorite are those who deconstruct “leave no trace” as a privileged white gatekeeping activity intended to discriminate against native people and POC.”
–Reddit–
At the height of the 2020 hysteria there were people who considered it racist to think blasting music on trails was inappropriate.
It is kind of crazy to think what a fever dream that was and then how people don’t understand how we had this huge backlash to all of it.
There’s a lot more where that came from. Just Google “Sierra Club + DEI problems”
The “huge backlash” referred to above affected not just the Sierra Club but is widely acknowledged to have been a significant factor in the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
I recently read that social systems often fail not because of a shortage of intelligence or idealism, but from an abundance of less-than-ideal adherents promoting them. When the blind lead the blind, both fall into a ditch. As someone, somewhere, once said.
Wiki Science Photo Competition 2025 | Wikimedia Commons
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
Wikimedia Commons is a vast storehouse of photos and other images which anyone can use with the stipulation that you’re supposed to credit the source, just as with any of the stuff people steal all day long from the web and never credit anyone. So if you’re one of the 99.998% of photographers whose photos will never be sold to anyone, but who think they’re good and want to share them with a larger audience than their maiden aunt and her cat, in this case the entire world, this is a great place to send them. I have no idea how many thousands of photos I’ve uploaded from Wikipedia and Wikimedia over the past 15 years to use in the various things I write and post, but it was probably 500 or so just for my 138-installment-series on the early Mongol Empire, the Kyivan Rus,’ and why the Mongols didn’t conquer all of Europe. [Yes, that was a plug.]
And…I just found out they have contests. A different topic every single month. This has been going on since 2013. They also have longer contests. For example there is a year-long, biannual, science competition going on right now, and it has a U.S.-only section.
All you need to know about the Wiki Science Competition in the United States is at the link below. From the snippet above you can see there’s a wide variety of acceptable “science” photos. I particularly like the shot of the tree canopy, appropriately titled “Crown Shyness” by Mirai Kambayashi. There are several categories: People in science, Microscopy, Astronomy, Non-photographic media, Image sets, Wildlife and nature, & General. The contest runs Nov. 1 – Dec. 15, 2025.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Science_Competition_2025_in_the_United_States
But that current contest barely scratches the surface. Linked below is a page that explains everything, and has a ton of example photos people have sent in. The winners are decided by those who send in photos: you can’t vote for yourself, photos must be new to the commons, you can submit as many as you want, and a few other caveats.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photo_challenge
The November 2025 contest is on glaciers. Here’s a screensnip of a few photos:
Categories can seem screwy, but no screwier than the endless shots of people about to eat a burrito or other presumed edible with which people entertain each other these days. For example the October 2025 contest is (as it’s still open) on…Freight Cars! Here’s an example:
The September 2025 contest was on…yes, you guessed it…bricks!
This just keeps going. As said above, these contests started in 2013. It’s all on this page, and you can branch out from there. Check it out. Maybe they’ll soon be doing a contest on…eating desserts!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photo_challenge#
There’s a table of contents on the left side of the page that can get you to any of the above photo sets, plus plenty more.
President’s Annual Appeal for 2025
We are asking you to consider giving us your support this year. Remember, this is our only fund raising effort. We don’t pester you weekly, monthly, or throughout the year. Your help allows our all-volunteer group to accomplish our mission “to be a center for wildlife education, habitat protection, and conservation issues that involve birds.”
These efforts are of increasing importance in view of the past decreasing support for environmental issues coming from the Federal Administration.
You can DONATE four different ways:
- With the self-addressed envelope enclosed with the annual appeal letter (sent to those already on our membership rolls)
- Send a check to our mailing address: SMBAS, PO Box 35, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
- With PayPal using the PayPal Widget located on the right side bar of the blog
- With a Credit Card using the same PayPal Widget located on the right side bar of the blog. You do not have to join PayPal to donate, just have your credit card “standing by.”
Please take a moment and make a donation today.
We continue our strong backing of all things birds, habitat, native plants, the environment and conservation through education, field trips, bird monitoring, speakers and grants to students and conservation groups.
Please take a minute to read the annual appeal letter below and see what we have been doing this year.
Thank you,
Jean Garrett
President
Link to our online 2025-26 Calendar of Field Trips and Programs
Dear Friend of SMBAS, November 6, 2025
As we write this letter, we are acutely aware of the consequences of the Palisades Fire for many of our members, neighbors, and friends. We hope for their recovery and continuing interest in nature in general and especially in birds. Most of you know, this is our only financial appeal of the year. As an all-volunteer chapter our expenses are low, but our activities are frequent and with great local impact. Our members have supported us over the decades and we hope you will help us continue in our mission.
This year we are welcoming several new members – five and counting – to the Board of SMBAS. As time progresses, you’ll probably see a gradual change in our activities and outreach that corresponds to a younger population on the board. We’re also looking forward to next year as Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society celebrates its 50th Anniversary.
We are approaching the end of the year along with the holiday season and hope it gives you the opportunity to celebrate. Please remember that local birding is at its best for the next six months, so we hope to see you on a field trip in the near future.
Please join us and encourage your friends to do so. Our activities are all free and most have no attendance limit. If you’re experienced or want to start joining our leadership, we welcome co-leaders. Just get in touch with the leader listed on the blog announcement.
Jean Garrett, President SMBAS
Your support helps these activities and services to continue:
- The Blog: In addition to advance announcements and follow-up reports of all our activities, our blog has frequent interesting articles on birds, nature and science in general. There are occasional longer series on subjects like avian taxonomy and polyandry. The blog also has permanent pages on special topics: Animal rescue information, Western Snowy Plovers, 80 L.A. Co. Birding Areas, Malibu Lagoon, Calendar, Grant Applications, The Tongva, Birds in the Bible, Locating Birds for Others, Zoom Recordings. When you give that www.smbas.org address to your friends and acquaintances, make sure you encourage them to explore the multiple links on our site. It’s a treasury of history, local knowledge and bird lore!
- Malibu Lagoon monthly bird walks: (4th Sunday–not the last), we welcome new and experienced birders at 8:30 and ‘Kids and Parents’ at 10 am.
- Field Trips: Held October—June to nearby destinations, usually on the 2nd Saturday of the month. Currently scheduled: 13 Dec: Back Bay Newport; 14 Feb: Madrona Marsh; 14 Mar: Sepulveda Basin. Remember to check smbas.org for updates and adjustments!
- Evening Programs: October through December and February through May, an online program on scientific, travel, or conservation topics. Please check smbas.org for our next program. Sign up on the blog to receive all announcements in your inbox.
- Your funding helps support:
- Endowments with Santa Monica College Foundation and Loyola Marymount University supply scholarship aid to biology or ecology students.
- Grants up to $600 to students at local colleges and universities for research on local species and environments. We would love to expand the number of awards as the costs for students keeps ballooning.
- Funding for bus transportation for inner city children to visit and explore Ballona Saltwater Lagoon. The number of buses we pay for depends on our annual fundraising.
- Sponsorship of student summer internship with Student Conservation Association.
- Staffing the Annual Coastal Cleanup station at Malibu Lagoon State Beach for Heal the Bay, [held on the 3rd Saturday of September.]
- Our conservation activities include: Regular monitoring of our beloved Western Snowy Plovers, monitoring and encouraging the Bay Foundation’s Dune Restoration program on local beaches, special letter-writing and appearances before local and national organizations to develop influence. We alert our readers to letter-writing campaigns in conjunction with other organizations to oppose or support legislation.
Please check the blog www.smbasblog.com for changes and updates.
[posted by Chuck Almdale]
SANTA MONICA BAY AUDUBON SOCIETY BLOG 