President's Message

By Sarah Linney

Welcome back everyone! It’s been season full of landmarks: the shuttle’s Return To Flight, and subsequent re-grounding, record heat wave in parts of the west, major drought in the mid-west, and the most active tropical season so far. However, I hope all of you had a relatively normal summer, enjoyed vacations, and spent time being young at heart with your children and grandchildren.

As the summer’s heat wears on closer to home, your officers and directors are busy gearing up for this year’s activities. We had a very productive meeting the end of July to do some planning, get caught up on what’s been done, and toss around some new ideas. As you may recall, Juliet, Dee and Andy went to the Audubon Academy back in March and we are finally going to be able to put into action some of the many ideas they brought back with them.

Our new co-VPs Jason Frederick and Jim Meyer have been quite busy lining up some great programs for this year, starting big with a presentation by Highwaymen artist Robert L. Lewis, Jr. (please see info elsewhere in the Limpkin). This should be a fantastic program and demonstration! Jason has also expanded our Project Colony Watch areas by adding several spoil islands, including Mullethead Is. off Haulover Canal, in cooperation with Marc Epstein and MINWR. And I have it on good authority that this year’s field trip schedule will be busy and even better than before. If you have any ideas for places to go, don’t keep it to yourself!

Plans are in the works to do a couple of projects out at the Canaveral Locks in partnership with the Corps of Engineers and the Port Authority. At the very least we’ll be able to put up 1 or 2 Purple Martin houses at the Locks and hopefully organize the construction of a couple of viewing platforms around what’s known as Avocet Lagoon (or Lake).

Space Coast and Orange County Audubon Societies will be hosting the Audubon Assembly in Cocoa Beach at the Holiday Inn this October. More info elsewhere in this issue and to be announced.

I am very pleased to announce that Andy Bankert started our new year off with a bang with a very generous donation of $2500 that he raised with your help from the World Series of Birding. He also gave a smaller donation to the Merritt Island Wildlife Association. Thank you, Andy! The May Auction was also a tremendous success, raising about $875 between the 40 or so of us that attended. Many thanks go to the great auctioneering tag-team of Hank Kraal and Lenny Lieberman for making the evening an event to remember. We’ll have some other ongoing and one-time fundraisers this year, including (I hope) the much-welcomed Spaghetti Dinner. Stay tuned for more info.

Well, I can’t spoil all the fun so you’ll just have to wait and see what the year brings. If you’d like to be more involved in the process, we would love to have you join the board or even just help on a committee such as conservation, education, or publicity to name a few. See you all at the potluck! Bring your stories and slides, and of course some food to share!

Good birding to all, Sarah