Beginning March 1, 2010, the Indiana Audubon Society (IAS) is pleased to announce an exciting new membership benefit for our online members.  Included with your online membership* is a subscription to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s online Birds of North America (BNA), a comprehensive reference of North America’s breeding birds.  

The print version of BNA encompasses 18 volumes, over 18,000 pages and took the American Ornithologists’ Union, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the Academy of Natural Sciences 10 years to complete.  The online version is an updatable living reference which includes the life history information detailed in the print version and has the added benefit of including calls, songs, video and supplemental information.  Read more about the project at http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna.  

The annual BNA subscription cost is $42 but IAS is proud to offer this service to its online members at no additional cost.  IAS is able to provide this benefit due to the tremendous response in migrating mail delivery of The Indiana Audubon Quarterly and The Cardinal to electronic delivery in 2009.  The special committee for Publications and Website proposed the idea to the IAS Board during the January 2010 meeting and it was enthusiastically accepted.  The committee believes BNA access to be a significant benefit to current online members and hopes to use BNA as a tool to recruit new members.

In order to access BNA, you will be required to login to the IAS webpage as usual.  From there you will access BNA via a link. As currently planned, you will need to login to it, again using your IAS username and password.

Additional information will be communicated via email and updates on the website, so stay tuned!  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jay Bolden at jay_bolden@hotmail.com.

* The BNA benefit will not be included with the Library, Fledgling, and Young Birder memberships.  To receive the BNA benefit, members must agree to receive the publications online. Members who prefer to receive the publications by mail can receive the BNA benefit by donating $10 a year to help cover the extra cost of printing and postage.

The National Audubon Society’s Bird Conservation Initiative in Indiana is beginning a monumental task to further the knowledge of Indiana’s unique bird life within our Important Bird Areas (IBA).   Indiana has 40 recognized IBAs and 15 of them are considered to be globally important, which is a higher number of global IBAs than all other states except Alaska, Florida, California, and North Carolina.  It is important that good data on these bird populations exist so that land managers can make better decisions on issues that affect our sensitive bird populations.

The primary objective of this project is to monitor land birds in IBAs across the Hoosier landscape using a standardized survey methodology carried out by teams of volunteers during migration, breeding season, and winter.  The National Audubon Society’s Bird Conservation Director for Indiana, Ross Brittain, is seeking volunteers to help conduct surveys in these great birding places.  The Indiana Audubon Society is reaching out to its members to assist in any way you can.  Find out more about the National Audubon Society's Bird Conservation Initiative, or email Ross Brittain at rbrittain@audubon.org.

• By 1900 Trumpeter Swans were extirpated from their nesting and wintering areas in Central and Eastern North America. Their historic migrations to southerly wintering sites were totally destroyed.
• In recent decades wild nesting populations of Trumpeters have been successfully restored in several northerly states and Ontario. Most swans now winter near their northern breeding areas, but an unknown number are pioneering southward where they are beginning to establish use of more southerly wintering sites.
• Little is known regarding the numbers and groupings of southward migrants, the location and characteristics of the sites they are pioneering, the duration of use, or problems they may be encountering.
• By providing information through Trumpeter Watch, observers can help document the changing distribution of wintering Trumpeter Swans and help identify potential new southerly wintering sites.

Read more on the website of the Trumpeter Swan Society

 There's nothing like the approach of spring to get my birding juices flowing again.  Most of us “birders” enjoy the speedy approach of spring as it brings in a flux of migratory birds as they head to breeding grounds in our state and beyond.

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