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Birmingham Audubon Society programs and general meeting are held the third Thursday of the month, 7:00 p.m. Board Meetings are held the same day at 5:45 p.m. ****As of February, 2013 meeting, our meetings will be held at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 2612 Lane Park Road, Birmingham, AL 35223. The program/meeting room will be different each month, so be sure to check the monthly program for that month's meeting room.
March Program and Meeting
March 21, 2013
Time: 7 p.m.
Meeting Place: Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Adventure Room (Note: this is a new meeting place for Birmingham Audubon.) Address for the Gardens is 2612 Lane Park Road, Birmingham, AL 35223. Board meeting is at 5:45 in the Exploration Room.
Program: "How do you Connect to Your Coast?" presented by Mark Berte, Alabama Coastal Foundation
Mark Berte of the Alabama Coastal Foundation (ACF), an organization whose mission is to improve and protect Alabama's coastal environment through cooperation, education, and participation, will be our speaker on March 21. His presentation will give Audubon members an overview of the work and activities of the ACF which, as of last year, is a statewide organization. The ACF uses an education-based approach to conservation, and pursues practical solutions to conservation challenges in a non-adversarial manner. In 2012, the ACF helped to coordinate a record number of hours (7,812 valued at $166,875) contributed by volunteers throughout the state, had increases and new developments in other education programs. They also had successes in two areas in the political arena in which we were partners: the passage of the RESTORE Act and the Forever Wild reauthorization. Audience members will gain an overview of activities and actions that have taken place in the Gulf region following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. How do you connect to Alabama's coastal environment? Attend this presentation and you will know.
Mark Berte is the Executive Director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation. Prior to serving at the ACF, Mark was Director of Community Engagement for the Mobile Area Education Foundation and the Executive Director of the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation. Mark received his bachelor's degree at Birmingham Southern College and his master's degree from the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Currently, he is a member of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama Roundtable, and is a graduate of the 2006 class of Leadership Mobile and 2007 class of Leadership Alabama. Mark serves on several local and statewide organizations including Mobile United, the League of Women Voters of Mobile, Council Traditional School PTA, the Islands of Perdido Foundation, the Alabama Poverty Project and the David Mathews Center for Civic Life.
For additional information regarding the Alabama Coastal Foundation, please visit their website: http://www.joinACF.org.
April Program and Meeting
April 25, 2013
Time: 7 p.m.
Meeting Place: Birmingham Botanical Gardens, East Room (Note: this is a new meeting place for Birmingham Audubon.) Address for the Gardens is 2612 Lane Park Road, Birmingham, AL 35223. Board meeting is at 5:45 in the Exploration Room.
Program: "The Ratites and Podocarps of Aotearoa or Flightless Birds and Unique Plants of New Zealand"
Presented by Ellen W. McLaughlin and Carl Sloan
 New Zealand, "the land of the long, white cloud", like Australia, is home to many species of animals and plants found no where else in the world. Among these are two prominent flightless birds, the living Kiwi and the extinct Moa. This program will describe the adaptations these birds have made to a flightless existence including skeletal changes, habitat preference, food procurement, reproduction and ecology. New Zealand is also home to the giant tree ferns and the great podocarp forests. In addition to endemic lichens and mosses, the plant families Podocarpaceae and Auriacariaceae are primarily plant families found in the Southern hemisphere. Some of these trees rival the eucalyptus and the redwoods as the largest in the world.
Ellen McLaughlin is a retired Professor emeritus from the Biology Department at Samford University. Since then she has travelled to New Zealand, China, Mongolia and the Mid-East (Israel and Jordan). She presently teaches one day courses for beginner naturalists on The Forest Floor, Tree Bark Biota and Identification, Use of the Microscope, Insects, Aquatic Biology, Wildflowers and Beginning Birding.
Carl Sloan is a regular instructor at the Audubon Mentone Workshops, the Ruffner Mountain Nature Center and teaches Biology at Jefferson State Community College. He is known for his expertise on lichens, mosses, liverworts and ferns. Carl has been to New Zealand twice and has bicycled around the country
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