Bus Birding Activities and Events

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Saturdays, September 3, 10, 17, and 24 -- 

Feathered Friends: All About Birds Family Days

1:00 to 4:00 pm
CU Museum of Natural History, Henderson Building
15th Street & Broadway

Whether your family feels like a gaggle of geese, a kettle of hawks or a chattering of starlings, bring the whole flock down to the CU Museum of Natural History any Saturday in September for an afternoon of free hands-on fun and informative bird activities.
For more information cumuseum.colorado.edu or 303-492-6892

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Saturday, September 17 -- All About Birds Family Day

1:00 to 4:00 pm
CU Museum of Natural History, Henderson Building
15th Street & Broadway

Come to the CU Museum of Natural History for a special bi-lingual day of free hands-on science games and activities for the whole family thanks to the Museum and Environment for the Americas. Create a Mexico-US bird migration mural and go on a short bird-walk on campus near the Museum led by Elena Klaver. All activities will be in Spanish and English.

For more information                     cumuseum.colorado.edu or 303-492-6892
Environment for the Americas        http://www.birdday.org/

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Wednesday, September 21

For the Birds: A Flock of Writers Read About All Things Avian

7:00 pm, CU Museum of Natural History, Henderson Building
15 th Street & Broadway
Soar high with bird-related poems, essays, and stories. For the Birds features five regionally and nationally known naturalists, writer/artists, literary community organizers, and bird-poem kings/queens including Jack Collom, Suzanne DuLany, Ellen Orleans, Jennifer Phelps, and Priscilla Stuckey. Collom is an internationally recognized poet who has been a passionate birder for 68 years. DuLany is a writer, artist and environmental activist who explores the possibilities of inter-species communication through poetry. Her current project focuses on the bio-region of the Front Range from the perspective of a crow. Orleans is a writer, artist, and big fan of water birds, currently working on a collection of essays entitled  Golden: A Pocket-Sized Vision of the Great Outdoors. Phelps facilitates writing and dream workshops at Pomegranate Place in Denver and has lectured at the Boulder Friends of Jung on Mysticpoetics.  Recent publications include an essay in Fearless Nest: Our Children as our Greatest Teachers.  Stuckey writes and teaches at Prescott College in Prescott , Arizona . Her book,  Kissed by a Fox: And Other Stories of Friendship in Nature  will be published by Counterpoint Press next year. Light refreshments will be served.
For more information cumuseum.colorado.edu or 303-492-6892

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Tuesday, October 11 -- Art, Birds and the Re-Natural Environment

7:00 pm, CU Museum of Natural History, Henderson Building
15 th Street & Broadway
Nationally recognized artist, educator and “re-naturalist” Brian D Collier will talk about his work and the creation of the Bird Shift: The Anthropogenic Ornithology of North America exhibit, including Bus Birding , the new art/science/transportation project created for Boulder public buses in collaboration with scientists, transportation professionals, birders, and others. Collier translates research by scientists and others into exhibitions and projects that circulate information about unknown facts and current issues about our natural environment in unique and interesting ways inspiring public awareness and conversation through visual elements and humor. Included in the exhibit are thought provoking photos, objects and videos as well as web-based features. Light refreshments will be served.
For more information cumuseum.colorado.edu or 303-492-6892
For more information about Collier briandcollier.net

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Saturday, October 15 -- Warblers and Woodpeckers in the Urban Woods

Meet at Columbia Cemetery at 8:40 a.m., approximate end time 11:00 a.m.
9th & Pleasant Street

Join Lise Cordsen and Boulder County Audubon’s Steve Jones for a bird walk in Boulder’s historic Columbia Cemetery. Meet at the main entrance to Columbia Cemetery at 9th and Pleasant, just 3 blocks south and up the hill from the JUMP bus stop at 9th and Arapahoe. We’ll search for late-migrating warblers, other songbirds, woodpeckers, and urban raptors while exploring the history and ecology of Columbia Cemetery. Steve Jones has studied Boulder County birds for 40 years and is co-author of Wild Boulder County, Colorado Nature Almanac, and the Peterson Field Guide to North American Prairie. Lise Cordsen, former Historic Boulder board member and co-chair of “Meet the Spirits, “ and co-author of a soon-to-be published book on Columbia Cemetery, will co-lead the walk.

The bus is free with an Eco Pass and free to the first 10 participants who are first-time bus riders.  Otherwise, please bring exact change ($2.25 for adults, $1.10 for seniors 65+, individuals with disabilities, Medicare recipients, and students in elementary, middle and high school, ages 6-19. Children 5 or younger ride free. Active duty members of the U.S. military currently ride for free) for each ride up and back.  

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Wednesday, October 19 -- Whoo are the Owls?

7:00 pm - 8:30 p.m., Lafayette Public Library
775 West Baseline Road, Lafayette

Owls have been regarded with fascination and awe throughout recorded history and across many cultures. To some people they are symbols of wisdom, to others they are harbingers of doom and death. Over half of the owls recorded in the US have been seen in Boulder County, and most of those owls nest here. Join volunteer naturalist and Boulder County Nature Association President Sue Cass to explore these fascinating creatures of the night, and to learn about the diversity and special adaptations that make them such expert hunters. All ages are welcome.

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Thursday, October 27 -- Hollywood and Birds

7:00 pm, CU Museum of Natural History, Henderson Building
15 th Street & Broadway
Colorado Public Radio film critic and NPR film commentator Howie Movshovitz will lead this lively and wide-ranging panel discussion with film clips. After Movshovitz introduces and shows each clip, panelists will comment on what's Hollywood science and what's real science, what couldn't really happen and what could. Movshovitz is Director of Film Education in the College of Arts & Media at the University of Colorado Denver . Panelists include Bill Kaempfer, Vice Provost of CU Boulder and Vice President of the Colorado Field Ornithologists; Rebecca Safran, Assistant Professor, CU Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (schedule permitting); and Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory wildlife biologist Jeff Birek. (Yes, Hitchcock's The Birds will be included, but many more surprising films as well.)

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Saturday, November 5

Wetlands Bus Birding with Petrea Mah – Sombrero Marsh

8:30 am – 11:30 am - Please be on time – the bus will not wait
Meet at Scott Carpenter Park
Join Boulder County Audubon past president Petrea Mah for a bus ride to bird watching. We'll meet near the Long JUMP bus stop on Arapahoe on the north side of Scott Carpenter Park (30th and Arapahoe in Boulder) and bus out to Sombrero Marsh for an easy walk to look for ducks and other wetland birds. We will do a brief orientation to wetland birding on the bus as we ride to this alkaline salt marsh that is Boulder County 's largest natural wetland. After we JUMP off the bus at the 63rd and Arapahoe stop, we will walk through a residential area before we reach the marsh.  As we walk, we can notice the birds there and compare them to what we see in the marsh. As a hint – if there is water in the marsh, we may have a chance to see some unusual shore birds and water fowl as they migrate south. Everyone is welcome.  Please bring water, a snack, and footwear suitable for easy trail hiking; and bird guides and binoculars if you have them.
The bus is free with an Eco Pass and free to the first 10 participants who are first-time bus riders. Otherwise, please bring exact change ($2.25 for adults, $1.10 for seniors 65+, individuals with disabilities, Medicare recipients, and students in elementary, middle and high school, ages 6-19. Children five or younger ride free.  Active duty members of  the  U.S. military currently ride for free ) for each ride up and back.  
Bus Birding information:   BusBirding.Societyrne.Net/
Program information: Petrea Mah at 303-494-4121 or petreamah@comcast.net

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Tuesday, November 15 -- Look Who’s Moved into the Neighborhood: Human/Bird Interactions in Boulder County and Beyond

7:00 pm, CU Museum of Natural History, Henderson Building
15 th Street & Broadway

Join Ted Floyd, Editor of the American Birding Association’s Birding magazine; Peter Gent, National Center for Atmospheric Research Senior Scientist and birder; Joanna Hubbard, a graduate student in the CU Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Steve Jones, a teacher, naturalist, author, environmental consultant, and Vice-President of the Boulder County Audubon Society in a panel discussion followed by questions from the audience about what you have always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about birds in Boulder County. Topics will include how human activities have affected birds, which birds like to live where humans do and why, and the effects of urbanization and climate change on bird behavior and shifting habitat in Boulder County – and what you can do about it.

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December date TBA -- Bird Walk with Dave Madonna

Day, Date, and Time to be confirmed
Xcel Energy Valmont Station
1800 63rd St.
JUMP 63rd Street Bus Birding Stop

Dave Madonna, Senior Engineer forXcel Energy’s Valmont Station, oversees the owl cam program and other bird activities there, and leads the annual “Gullapalooza” each winter, providing an opportunity for the public to enter and explore the cooling ponds around the plant