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What is Audubon doing to address climate change, help the Gulf Coast recover, and manage the Mississippi River basin? Click to find out! |
To learn about ospreys
in Indiana, visit the IDNR
website or its Osprey
Reintroduction Project.
Visit seafood.org
to learn how to make wise decisions about fish and shellfish.
and Education
tree-planting plans • TogetherGreen
• conservation activities since 2007
• state
& national conservation •
education scholarships •
Audubon Adventures
Children's
education activities
RCAS Education Chair Deborah Brown has made great progress reaching out to young people and educating them on the importance of birds and other wildlife.
She has already enrolled more than 10 children in the RCAS Jr. Audubon Society, for which they receive a certificate and issues of the Tweet, which Deborah created as a newsletter just for kids.
On May 5 she’ll attend the Delaware County Master Gardeners Day Camp, called “Bat, Birds and Butterflies,” where she’ll discuss birds with children ages 5-11 and also tell them how our Audubon Society works to protect native bird species.
The Tweet, now in its second issue, is geared toward children under 12 and includes puzzles, information on upcoming kid-friendly field trips, and fun wildlife facts relevant to children of this age group. Click to download the current issue.
If you know any children who'd like to receive future issues via email, just send their names and email addresses to Deborah Brown at ladyhwk17@aol.com. Neither children nor parents need to be a member of the Robert Cooper Audubon Society. Be sure to put “The Tweet” in the Subject line.
Our
chapter’s conversation work over the last few years – including
the distribution and planting of 5,000 saplings – has been done
largely in Delaware, Jay and Madison Counties. We want to broaden our
work to Henry and Blackford Counties this year, eventually working in
all seven of our chapter’s counties.
We will do this by buying year-old commercially sold potted seedlings and placing them on public property. These will be much sturdier plants than DNR bare-root seedlings, will require much less attention, and will have a much greater chance of survival. We propose to place 30 trees in each of four counties: Delaware, Blackford, Henry and Grant.
The RCAS Board has allotted $340 for this
project. The remaining three-fourths of the cost will be underwritten
by chapter donors.
How
you can help
You can help by planting seedlings (when the time comes) and/or by making a financial contribution.
To donate your time, contact Charlie Mason, at chas.mason@ sbcglobal.net or 765-288-9937. To make a financial donation of any size, send your gift to: RCAS, c/o Nona Nunnelly, 1302 N. Alden Rd., Muncie, IN 47304.
Read the full story about our conservation
plans in the March/April 2012 Chat.
Read about highlights of our conservation work since 2007, below.
TogetherGreen:
Project Overview
....Making a "Greener" Greenway
This past fall our chapter completed its year-long TogetherGreen Innovation Grant project, for which we received $20,000. This grant program, funded by Toyota, supports creative and ambitious projects that engage diverse communities and find innovative solutions to environmental challenges.
RCAS
collaborated with Cardinal
Greenways, Muncie-Delaware
Clean & Beautiful, Red-tail
Conservancy, and Blue
Ash Consulting to remove invasive species and plant native trees and
grasses at the Hughes Nature Preserve and along the Cardinal Greenway.
The Hughes Nature Preserve lies between the Cardinal Greenway and the White River in Muncie, across from the John Craddock Wetland Nature Preserve. It is the site of the former Gill Clay Pot Company.
Involving the community
The site long had a major infestation of invasive species, with Asian bush honeysuckle blanketing the site in an arching maze of branches. Without restoration, the site would have continued to decline until virtually no native tree species remained.
From
fall 2010 to fall 2011, 150 volunteers contributed almost 1,000 hours
to removing invasive species, planting 1,000 native trees and shrubs and
1,200 native grass plugs, and cleaning up the property.
Eighty-five children and youth also took part in educational activities, learning about the harmful effects of invasive species and benefits of native species.
About
TogetherGreen 
Audubon and Toyota launched the five-year TogetherGreen initiative in 2008 to fund conservation projects, train environmental leaders, and offer volunteer opportunities that significantly benefit the environment. Funds were awarded to Audubon organizations that demonstrated exceptional innovation in working with other groups on projects that will produce tangible benefits for the environment.
RCAS
conservation projects since 2007
Tree-planting and control of invasives
Our
RCAS Conservation Committee members have focused most of their attention
in the last four years on control of invasive species and planting of
native species.
At Summit Lake State Park, for example, the committee has attacked honeysuckle, autumn olive, multiflora rose and white mulberry in the Nature Area.
Conservation Committee Chair Charlie Mason has purchased, planted, and distributed thousands of saplings to organizations and individuals, and he has educated hundreds of people about the importance of trees.
In
the summer of 2010 our Audubon chapter joined forces with the Indiana
Department of Natural Resources to restore 50 acres of the 129-acre Zeigler
Woods Nature Preserve, in Henry County.
The restoration project converted brome grass, a Eurasian exotic, to native grass and forbs. The new habitat, as it matures, will be ideal for grassland bird species.
Marjorie Zeigler generously donated $2,500 toward the project. Twenty years ago, Marj and her husband Sherman purchased the land and donated it to the Nature Conservancy. It was later turned over to the state.
In
2007, the RCAS worked with local utility companies to erect a total of
five osprey nesting platforms in East Central Indiana.
Two platforms are at each end of the dam at Summit Lake, in Henry County. Though rather secluded, the north platform can be seen from 750N; with binoculars, it can also be seen from the Sunset Shelter area. (See map to locate Summit Lake and the dam.)
Another Henry County platform can be seen at Province Pond, on the south side of U.S. 36, 1.3 miles west of Mt. Summit. (See map.) The platform is located on the south end of the dam, which is on the west side of the ponds.
To see Prairie Creek area platforms, visit the Red-tail Nature Preserve at the corner of 650S and 461E (go east on 650 from U.S. 35). From the parking lot take the gravel trail to the right and follow it to the hill overlooking the reservoir.
You can also see an osprey platform at the north end of Westwood Reservoir in New Castle.
State
and national conservation activities2
- An Important
Bird Area (IBA) is a site that provides essential habitat
for one or more bird species. Thus far, approximately 40 IBAs have been
identified in
Indiana, but none of them are in East Central Indiana!
Our chapter is in search of a volunteer who will take on the task of nominating Summit Lake State Park and the Loblolly Marsh Preserve as Important Bird Areas. Visit "Other Happenings" for information about how you can help.
- The Indiana Bird Breeding Atlas project is nearing its information-gathering stage. See "Other Happenings" for more information.
RCAS
Youth Conservation Scholarship
Each
year, the winner of our chapter's Charles Wise Youth Conservation Award
receives a Robert Cooper Audubon Society Conservation Scholarship.
The scholarship may be used by the winners to attend a week-long youth ecology camp in northern Wisconsin, or it may be used to fund an ecology project that they have designed or want to participate in.
For information about Audubon camps for both teens and adults, visit "Field Trips."
Local
teachers of 3rd through 6th grades are invited to request Audubon
Adventures kits. Each kit serves a classroom of up to 32 children
and contains four nature- or conservation-related themes for each academic
year.
If you are an educator or you know an educator who would like to use Audubon Adventures in a classroom, please contact Deborah Brown, Education Chair, at LadyHwk17@aol.com. If you'd like to sponsor Audubon Adventures classroom, please contact Deborah as well.
