I am one of the 160 plus birders who experienced the wonder and beauty of
western Colorado and its avifauna in and around Montrose this past weekend
during the Colorado Field Ornithologists Annual Convention. Conventioneers
attended a total of 42 field trips, with 22 trip leaders. Roughly 200
checklists submitted to eBird recorded 178 species, including local specialties
such as Gambel’s Quail, Black Swift, Gray Vireo, Pinyon Jay, Canada Jay,
Purple Martin, Black-throated and Sagebrush Sparrows, Scott’s Oriole, Bobolink,
Black-throated Gray Warbler and Grace’s Warbler. Additional rarities included
Burrowing Owl and Franklin’s Gull in Delta County, Sandhill Cranes in Gunnison
County and high-elevation Rock Wren and Cooper’s Hawk in San Juan County, and
White-winged Dove. Perhaps the most cherished bird sighting was a family group
of 8 Western Screech-Owls (see photos by Diana Beaty on the CFO Facebook page).
At the Banquet, the food was excellent and the entertainment was even
better. Nathan Pieplow, author of the Peterson Guides to Bird Sounds of Eastern
and Western North America, shared his insights into the vocabulary of birds.
Coen Dexter and Brenda Wright were honored with CFOs lifetime achievement
award. And the CFO’s slate of officers passed the torch to a new slate of
officers, including yours truly.
To wrap this up, I would like to thank our outgoing CFO leadership for their
years of service to the organization and the birding community-outgoing
officers include David Gillilan (President), Christy Carello (VP), Micheal
Kiessig (Treasurer), Wendy Wibbens (Secretary), and Directors Christian Nunes
and Jason St Pierre. The CFO Board welcomes new Directors Diana Beaty, Walter
Wehtje, Stephanie Pitt and Julie Frost, and new Officers Irene Fortune
(Treasurer) and Peter Burke (Secretary). Current Board members Gloria Nikolai
and Nick Komar assume new officer roles of VP and President, respectively.
As your new President, I would like to hear from you. If you have
comments, concerns or new ideas on how to improve CFO and the Colorado Birding
experience in general, or specific feedback from this convention (or any other
aspect of CFO such as the journal, website, County Birding web page, CFO
Facebook page, CBRC, grants program, field trips and workshops, etc), please
email your comments to me (reply to this email or contact me through the
website cobirds.org).
Sincerely yours,
Nick Komar
CFO President
Ps. If you value the discussion and information provided through COBIRDS and
you are not yet a member of CFO, please consider joining. Details at
cobirds.org.
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