Los Angeles Audubon Society April 2020

My term as President of Los Angeles Audubon Society is coming to a close at the end of June, and although I will give the annual Members’ Meeting in June, it will likely be a virtual meeting. Such is the way of life in the time of ‘social distancing’. So, I thought I would give you an update and glimpse into our operations in this distressing time as we contend with the novel Coronavirus.

Our Staff and Board have shifted operations to ‘virtual’ everything: online classrooms, staff meetings, board meetings, and our monthly evening programs. With schools closed, we have decided to keep as many of our educational programs going online as we can. And, we have determined that we can use this time for staff development as well as updating and refreshing existing programs. There have been no furloughs for staff!

The West Los Angeles College Conservation and Stewardship Certificate program continues online with Emily Cobar at the helm with support from Ingrid Carillio, Arely Mendia and Edgar Pedrosa. The online meetings have kept the students engaged with nature notebooks, video garden and habitat tours, as well as habitat restoration segments. Birds and their habitats figure prominently in the course work. This certificate program requires a certain number of hours spent at one of the local Baldwin Hills parks implementing a project for the betterment of wildlife habitat at the parks; therefore, the volunteer hours will have to wait until the ‘social distancing’ regulations and park closures are lifted.

The Los Angeles Audubon Society school tours at Ballona Wetlands and the Baldwin Hills were one of the first casualties even before the schools were closed. Nonetheless, our amazing Cindy Hardin continues to keep her docents looking to nature to sustain them through this time even without their school tours and Open Wetlands. She is also working to produce virtual tours of both Ballona Wetlands and Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area to provide elementary through middle school teachers with some temporary substitutions for the real tours that have been booked through the end of this school year.

Stacey Vigallon has become an expert with online learning, keeping the Greenhouse Program going, connecting twice a week with high school students in the Restoration Leaders’ track and the Research Interns’ track online. It is awe-inspiring to watch while she also keeps staff on track with our twice weekly, online meetings, where we all check-in and trade ideas for various resources for the environmental education programs. She was able to coordinate the spring surveys for Western Snowy Plovers and Least Terns before beach closures.

We have had to cancel all of our spring volunteer restoration events, including the 100-person Earth Day at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook State Park event sponsored by California State Park Foundation. We have been able to work with California State Parks and Los Angeles County Parks to allow our staff to continue to care for our greenhouses that house greenhouse seedlings and container plants … and even working to weed in our most recent restoration areas. Honest – staff begged me to let them keep weeding! With proper distancing, working in ones or twos, and now with masks, the work with the plants keeps staff grounded, so to speak.

And, of course, our wonderful birding programs at various local parks and field trips have had to be cancelled until further notice, but I am pretty sure that the birds don’t mind.

I would be remiss if I didn’t report on the 70th bird species at our most recent Schoolyard Habitat at Esperanza Elementary School as photographed by principal Brad Rumble. A Lazuli Bunting singing in the habitat! I think we will have a big future in providing more schoolyard habitats for urban schools since a trip to the habitat will not require buses and might be easier to keep students at safe distances from each other.

I must admit that initially, trying to coordinate all the moving parts of our Los Angeles Audubon Society had me more than a little nervous with early decisions to cancel our kick-off Nature Demands Action fundraiser, followed by deciding with field trip leaders to cancel or not to cancel, and canceling our March evening program, as well as trying to plan staff work with daily changes to access to our greenhouses at the State and County parks … but now we have all settled into the new routine of ‘Staying Safe’ here in Los Angeles. And, so we continue on with the mission of Los Angeles Audubon Society.

Carol Babeli is hard at working writing the grants that we will need, as well as keeping all aspects in play to re-schedule our cancelled fundraiser. So stay tuned. Susan Castor is tracking our membership as well as working to get out the Tanager.

I want to thank you all for your membership in the Los Angeles Audubon Society. Please stay safe and well.

Gratefully yours,

Margot Griswold, President

Los Angeles Audubon Society