President's Message

By Sarah Linney

The fact that you have not read a President's Message in the last two months does not mean one was not written. Au contraire, mon ami. I diligently wrote my bits but one failed to get attached to the e-mail and the other got lost in the junk mail box of the recipient. Dee tried to let me know the article was not attached; but I would not be checking my computer again for several days after I e-mailed her, long after she sent the newsletter in to be printed. Hopefully third time is the charm.

I was checking on the Great Backyard Bird Count results and noticed that quite a few reports were submitted from this area--yay! I finally got about a 45 minute break Sunday afternoon to see what I could find in the backyard. Wound up with 17 species I think and high numbers were Fish Crows and Cedar Waxwings--had decent flocks of each fly over not long before I had to quit. Yellow-rumps and robins were next in quantity. Thanks to all that took the time to participate.

If you have not seen it already elsewhere in this issue, please note a change of venue and speaker for the April 20 meeting. Our new speaker is coming up from the Yanayacu Biological Station in Ecuador and giving a talk on "The Nature of Equador." The new location is at FIT (Melbourne) in the Life Sciences Auditorium, thanks to Dr. David Cook whom we met at the Birding Festival. Directions and such will be forthcoming in the April issue of the Limpkin. The meeting time will be the same; however, due to FIT restrictions in the building, there will not be snacks at the end of the meeting.

This year's elections for new officers is just around the corner and we have a need for volunteers to serve. According to my sources, we will be electing the following officers: President, Treasurer, and Secretary. I believe Jim will be staying on for another year as VP, but if you would like to help him (ex. fill in while he is traveling), we can certainly have two VPs once again. Our Selection Committee was even hard to fill but Betty McKeown gently twisted a couple of arms and finally has some help. Please see info on this elsewhere in the Limpkin. If you would like to see what happens behind the scenes, we can also use some general help on the board. New faces and ideas are always welcome and anyone is invited to sit in on a meeting just to see what we really do (1st Tuesday, 6pm, Cocoa Library).

Here's wishing you a Happy St. Patrick's Day--and that is no blarney!