Join longtime Boulder Audubon member and former president Steve Jones to learn about the shorebirds in the grasslands on Tuesday, May 26th 2020.  In addition, to the fascinating talk by Steve, this meeting will include the BCAS Board elections and the presentation of our annual awards.  To nominate yourself or someone else, please write crossbill@boulderaudubon.org by 15 April 2020.

It seems strange but more than a dozen familiar shore and wading birds don’t nest by the ocean at all. These “upland” shorebirds and waders lay their eggs in the soft grasses of some of our most verdant prairies, or sometimes on bare sand flanked by tufts of grass. Though the presentation, we’ll journey to the Nebraska Sandhills to explore the lives of Piping Plovers, Long-billed Curlews, Marbled Godwits, Willets, Upland Sandpipers, Black-necked Stilts, White-faced Ibis, and many more. Along the way, we will explore why so many of these species are thriving in this oasis on the Western Plains.

Steve Jones is author of The Last Prairie, a Sandhills Journal, and co-author of The Shortgrass Prairie, the Peterson Field Guide to the North American Prairie, Colorado Nature Almanac, Wild Boulder County, and Butterflies of the Colorado Front Range. Steve organized the first comprehensive small owl and wintering raptor surveys in Boulder County. He helped organize and carry out the first and second Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas projects. His 28 years of consulting work includes more than three-dozen breeding bird and resource inventories for city, county, and state open space programs. He taught in the Boulder Valley Public Schools for 33 years, and he is a past president of both the Boulder County Audubon Society and Boulder County Nature Association.