Local Bird Walks have returned!
Camels In California?
Yes, there are camels in California! It all started when the U.S. Army at Camp Verde in Texas imported several hundred camels from Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, and Greece to deliver supplies to the arid Southwest. The United States was on the cusp of the Civil War, and southwestern California was strategic, but had various local groups with questionable allegiance to the Union. A detachment of thirty-one camels ended up at Fort Tejon at the northern end of the Tejon Pass, also known as the Grapevine in Kern County, California. It was the western terminus of the experimental U.S. Camel Corps. From June 24, 1854, to its abandonment on September 11, 1864, Fort Tejon was home to U.S. Dragoons followed by California Volunteer Troops, including companies of the 2nd California Volunteer Cavalry.
INTERPRETING NATURE The Park to Playa Trail — Walk Your Watershed
Adapting to pandemic conditions has pushed many of us to seek outdoor adventures close to home, visiting spots we may have overlooked or even dismissed in the past. The Park to Playa Trail is an ideal candidate to visit for a walk in a local watershed here in Los Angeles, with 13 continuous miles traversing the Ballona Creek Watershed from the Baldwin Hills all the way to Dockweiler Beach. Plan it right, and you can have your own birding big day, visiting coastal sage scrub habitat, manicured parklands with established tree cover, paved and less-paved stretches of Ballona Creek, and then beach habitat. Basically, gnatcatchers to oystercatchers on a single urban trail.
March and April 2022 Evening Program Presentations—Online
WED., MAR. 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Coffee and Conservation
Link: https://bluejeans.com/418433012/1977
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Wed. , Apr 13, 2022
7:30 – 8:30 PM
Link: https://bluejeans.com/226548979/739
Western Tanager, Volume 88 No. 3, January–February 2022
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Western Tanager, Vol. 88 No. 3, January-February 2022
•Birds of the Season — December 2021, •Island Hopping: Birding the U.S. Virgin Islands, Part 3: St. Thomas – Gateway to the Caribbean, •Trial Winter Bird Atlas Underway, •Until Next Time ... Goodbye Sadie, •A Botanical County, •Ballona Wetlands Learning Experiences–Interview with Ethan Greenberg
Ballona Wetlands Learning Experiences
As Director of Outdoor Education for Los Angeles Audubon, I routinely see over 3,000 students a year on field trips to the Ballona Wetlands and Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. For the most part, we only see these students on one or two field trips, and then they are off to the next grade level and onward.
It is difficult to really quantify the impact of the students’ experience from these trips, but occasionally a past attendee resurfaces, and we find that their field trip(s) really did have an impact on their lives and learning experiences. Ethan Greenberg is one such student, and I had the delightful experience of re-connecting with him last year as he worked on a special project for students deprived of a field trip due to the pandemic. Ethan graciously agreed to be interviewed about his experience at Ballona and the effect that it has had on his life. I am thrilled to share his thoughts with you, and to see that our mission to connect young people with wildlife can be quite substantive.
A Botanical County
Until Next Time ... Goodbye Sadie
Trial Winter Bird Atlas Underway
Longtime Los Angeles birders will remember the massive volunteer effort that went into the Los Angeles County Breeding Bird Atlas. Fieldwork for that project was from 1995 to 1999, which will be 30 years ago in 2025. Given the time that has passed and the changes in the county, birders are thinking about an update of the Atlas.
