Lane Audubon Continues Its Essential Work

Lane Audubon never just sits back and rests on its laurels. It can’t. Knowing our work is never done, our members continue to work with a number of outreach and educational activities. Here is a brief review for 2023, and an intro to the work planned for 2024.

We are planning to extend our Bird Friendly City program goals by sharing with other Oregon Audubon chapters, so each chapter can make progress in its own community using this cooperative program template. We will also be engaging with the Eugene community and others in Lane County as the opportunity arises, to expand awareness of Bird Friendly City. One component of this program is the Lights Out Eugene effort.

Lane Audubon’s two educational programs, Audubon in the Schools and Audubon Adventures, are each continuing to engage with schools, teachers, and students in various ways. In 2023 the Audubon Adventures kits were provided to nine districts (Fern Ridge, Siuslaw, Bethel, Eugene 4J, Springfield, Crow-Applegate-Lorane, Lowell, McKenzie, and South Lane), 19 schools, 36 classrooms, and 822 students. Additional kits have been ordered to start the 2024 program! Cecelia Hagen has also worked with the School Garden Project to help spread the word about work parties and has recruited more volunteers to help the schools with native plant gardens. Thanks to Cecelia for your great efforts!

In 2023, the Audubon in the Schools (AITS) team gave 20 Beginning Birding presentations at 11 schools for 610 students!! Isn’t that amazing! Requests are already coming in for the AITS team to visit libraries and schools in 2024. We will organize volunteers for those educational visits, bringing bird specimens and drawing supplies, or providing Beginning Birding sessions using kids’ binoculars to help them learn bird identification skills. Thanks to Barb Pope and her volunteer team for making this a success!