Programs

Murie Audubon General Meeting & Program, October 13

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This is the 2022 Wyoming Naturalist class, organizers, and trainers. The mission of the Wyoming Naturalist Program is to cultivate a community of volunteers to steward the state’s natural resources through conservation, education, and service. The program provides
education and training to participants in biodiversity, ecology, conservation, management, and interpretation so that they can become leaders in the effort to protect our natural resources and the special places where we live. Zach Hutchinson, community science coordinator from Audubon Rockies, will share stories from the first two years of the program. If you wish to learn more about Wyoming Naturalists, or how to become one, come to the Murie Audubon free talk on October 13, 2022, at 7 p.m., at the Izaak Walton Clubhouse, at 4205 Fort Caspar Road.


Zach Hutchinson
Community Science Coordinator

Murie Audubon General Meeting & Program, May 12

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BURROWING OWLS ACROSS NORTH AMERICA

Andrea is the statewide Nongame Bird Biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Nongame Program based in Lander, and will be presenting the meeting. She is collaborating on this project with colleague Dr. Courtney Conway from the University of Idaho and his research partners from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Recent developments in solar-powered GPS technology in the form of smaller transmitters are helping researchers collect data on the elusive seasonal migration and winter ranges of Burrowing Owls that nest in Wyoming during the summer months. In the past few years, researchers have placed satellite transmitters on Burrowing Owls in western states. Unfortunately, many of those have died or their transmitters have stopped sending locations. Owls outfitted with the new transmitters from Wyoming, along with other owls from western states and Canadian provinces, will add new data and hopefully new understating about these mysterious little birds. The Burrowing Owl is classified as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need in Wyoming, making this full annual cycle conservation project extremely important. Andrea will discuss the need for this work, project objectives and methods, and results of Burrowing Owl migration. Please join us on Thursday, May 12, 2022 at 7 pm at the Izaak Walton Clubhouse at 4205 Fort Caspar Road for this program. As always, the program is free and open to the public! Hope to see you there! -Bruce Walgren

Murie Audubon General Meeting & Program, April 14

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This month we will learn about how torrent ducks (Merganetta armata) live at high altitudes in the Andes of South America. This presentation will help us understand these riverine specialist ducks, and the methodology used to capture them alive. We will also learn about their history: when and how torrent ducks occupied the Andes, their behaviors (diving, feeding, and reproduction), their population abundance, and their orphological and physiological adaptations to the extreme conditions that they live in, such as high elevation, low temperatures, and hypoxia. Our guest speaker, Dr. Alza-Leon, is an ecologist, working in evolutionary biology. He works as a full-time instructor at Casper College and as an associated researcher to the Centro de Ornitología y Biodiversidad in Peru. He spent more than twenty years working in the field in Peru, and other countries in South America and in the Antarctic Peninsula. He began his career as an undergraduate in 1995, working in different research and monitoring projects. Later, in 2012, he started in the Ph.D. program at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and finished at the University of Miami, Florida. During that time, he moved to Casper in 2017 to start his family, and worked as a zoology adjunct instructor for the University of Wyoming at Casper.


Please join us on Thursday, April 14, at 7 PM at the Izaak Walton Clubhouse, 4205 Fort Caspar Road, for this program. As always, the program is free and open to the public!
-Luis Alza-Leon and Donna Walgren

Murie Audubon General Meeting & Program

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MAS APRIL PROGRAM AMPHIBIANS OF WYOMING

On April 23, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. Charlotte Snoberger will present The Amphibians of Wyoming. She will
cover the diversity of amphibians in Wyoming and share a variety of frog and toad calls. Snoberger is
the Herpetologist and Wildlife Management instructor at Casper College.

Due to social distancing precautions, all future programs, including this one, will appear via Zoom.
Links (see registration info below) to each program may be accessed via the Murie Audubon Facebook
or web page or by requesting a link via email from bruce_walgren@bresnan.net.
You are invited to a Zoom meeting.


When: Apr 23, 2021 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqcemoqDwtHNCCrKvscL2wrWvfjsmKgMKv
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the
meeting.
Program Chair note: There is a great article in the April 2021 Wyoming Wildlife magazine entitled
Who’s That Hopper all about Wyoming’s hoppers.
Bruce Walgren

Murie Audubon General Meeting & Program

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BLM Acquires Rim Rock Property

Katy Kuhnel, the Outdoor Recreation Planner for the Casper Field Office of the BLM will present our September 11 program via Zoom. She will inform us about the planning process with this property and what recreational activities that may be available to the public.

The program will be September 11 at 7 PM available on Zoom via your own computer-details to follow. To use Zoom, you need to register for EACH event (so every month). To register, click on this link https://forms.gle/abVyDRnss6JjxDPP6 and follow the directions. On the day of the event, about one hour before the event, you will receive an email with a link that will enable you to watch and participate in the event. You do not need a camera on your computer to participate. You may ask questions during and after the program, most commonly by typing the question in the text box that is part of Zoom. We’re looking forward to this program and we hope that you all will participate.

Bruce Walgren
Program Chair

Please see the newsletter for more information about Zoom, and how to register for this program. The September newsletter can be found on the newsletter tab.

October General Meeting

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Audubon Rockies Community Naturalist Zach Hutchinson will be the guest speaker at the Audubon program for October.

Zach returned at the end of September from a whirlwind, five-week journey around the globe! He spent two weeks in South Africa, two weeks in southeast Arizona, and one week in southern Colorado.
Okay, not so much the globe, but he did cross an ocean! He will present mostly on his time in South Africa, where he experienced safaris, sharks, and sunbirds! While birds were not the focus of his trip, he will share some of the photos of birds he took in between his other adventures. Prepare to hear about amazing sightings, harrowing  escapes, and awful misfortunes!

Zach’s presentations are always entertaining, educational, and fun, so you won’t want to miss this. Please join us on Friday, October 12, 2018 at 7 pm at the Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Building
at 2211 King Blvd. for this exciting program. As always, the program is free and open to the public! See you there!
– Zach and Bruce

 

Special Program: Birds of Peru

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Special edition Audubon Program: Birds of Peru

Before we take our traditional break for summer, we have the opportunity to have a fun program.

Community Naturalist Zach Hutchinson will be the speaker for a special Murie Audubon program on May 18th.   Zach will share photos and stories of his February adventures among the birds of Peru.  If you didn’t get to see Zach at either the Izaak Walton league or at the Werner Museum, here’s your chance.

As usual the program is at 7:00 p.m. at Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Building, 2211 King Blvd in Casper. And as always, the program is free and open to the public!

Bruce Walgren

Program – Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD)

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MURIE AUDUBON PROGRAM PRESENTS, Dr. George P. Jones, Vegetation Ecologist with the will be our guest speaker at the May program.

First, George will explain why the WYNDD exists, which is to provide information for people to use in resource development, management, and conservation.

Second, what they concentrate on: plants and animals that either are rare in Wyoming or are common only here, and the state’s vegetation – or habitat – or ecosystem-types. This part would be, basically, explaining what the biodiversity of Wyoming looks like from our point of view. Third, how they develop and provide this information. He will explain how, and why, their business has changed over the years to include more focused surveys, better-defined survey techniques, and the like.

WYNDD is a member of a network of similar programs collectively known as the Natural Heritage Network. Each of the 50 US states, most Canadian provinces, and many Latin American countries house a network program dedicated to gathering and developing biological information on species of conservation concern and natural vegetation communities. Programs in the network use the same database methodology and software and receive technical support from a coordinating organization known as NatureServe. Most programs are housed in universities or state agencies; WYNDD operates as a service and research unit of the University of Wyoming.

Please join us on Friday, May 11, 2018 at 7 pm at the Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Building at 2211 King Blvd. for this program. As always, the program is free and open to the public!

Murie Program

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The Stinging and the Stingless: Among the Bees of Mayan Mexico Dr. Will Robinson, entomologist in the Biology Department at Casper College, will give a presentation to Murie Audubon Society on April 13th at 7 p.m. at the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission at 2211 King Blvd.

Dr. Robinson visited Tabasco State in southern Mexico last December-January as a Fulbright Specialist in apiculture. There he worked with two kinds of local beekeepers: those keeping the notorious “killer bees,” honey bees with the reputation as vicious defenders of the hive, and those keeping “stingless bees.” Stingless bees are fascinating, overlooked social bees of many different species that have been kept by the Maya for thousands of years for honey production and medicinal hive products. Will encountered some eye-opening surprises in both kinds of bees, which he will share with the audience. He also managed to snap a few photos of birds and other wildlife along the way.

Please join us on Friday, April 13, 2018 for Will’s program.  As always, the program is free and open to the public!