September Meeting Canceled / Field Trip On

 

September 17 Meeting  CANCELED  due to Covid-19.

September 19 Field Trip

Social-distancing, meet from 8:00-8:15 a.m. on the north side of the Grand Haven Channel (Northshore Drive west from Ferrysburg to Lake Michigan, then south to the parking lot beside the channel).  After birding there for awhile, we'll return north and east to Ottawa Sands County Park (south side of Northshore Drive about 1/2 mile east of Lake Michigan; parking available on both sides of the road).  We will bird the fields, woods and marshy shoreline of the small lake until about noon. 

August 15 Un-Trip Report

photo by Carol Cooper

Eleven people drove around the Muskegon County Wastewater properties this morning communicating with walkie-talkies and occasionally getting out of their cars to see a nice variety of late-summer birds.

Notable sightings included Blue- and Green-winged Teal; Ruby-throated Hummingbird; Sandhill Crane; Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs; Baird's, Pectoral and Solitary Sandpipers; Northern Harrier; Cooper's Hawk; Tree, Bank, Barn and Cliff Swallows; Common Raven, Chipping, Field, Savannah and Song Sparrows; Bobolink and Yellow Warbler.

Although not an "official field trip" due to Covid conditions, the group still found 54 "unofficial" bird species.

Ottawa County Book Now Available

Aug. 10 Update (see July 30 post below).

Birds of Ottawa County: An Annotated Checklist  ($14.95) is now for sale at The Bookman in Grand Haven, Reader's World Bookstore in Holland, or by visiting the Ottawa County Parks main office located in the County Fillmore Government Complex, 12220 Fillmore St., in West Olive on Monday or Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm.  The book can also be ordered by phone from the Ottawa County Parks office at 616-738-4810 with an additional shipping fee.   

- Chip Francke

Regarding Programs and Field Trips

Good News/Bad News regarding 2020-2021 Programs:

We've filled the first four dates of our schedule, September through January (see details in the Sidebar).  However, we have no programs lined up for February, March and April nor any prospects at this time for presenters on those dates.  If you have ideas regarding possible programs for those dates, please contact me as soon as possible.  Thanks!

Field Trips for the upcoming season are now posted in the Sidebar.  Hopefully most of these can be conducted as in the past, but that will be dependent on pandemic conditions.

As a field trip date, consider August 15 CANCELED.  

However, some of us will still be on the Muskegon County Wastewater properties that morning from 8:30 until noon.  For car-to-car communication, we will have Walkie-Talkies tuned to Channel 11, Subchannel 0.  If others are present when we get out of our cars, we'll wear masks and maintain a safe social distance.  That will be a bit cumbersome, but no bird sighting is worth anyone's contracting Covid-19.

- Ric