Peoria Audubon Society is a local affiliate of both:

National Audubon Society &  Illinois Audubon Society

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2007 Spring Gathering

Held April 13-15, 2007 at Stoney Creek Inn & Conference Center, East Peoria, IL

The 2007 Spring Gathering, which was jointly organized by the Illinois Audubon Society jointly organized by the Peoria Audubon Society (Peoria) and the Emiquon Audubon Society (Havana) was a great success.

Friday 4/13, Dr. Michael Wiant, Director, Dickson Mounds Museum spoke on the natural history of our area.  He included information on what we know, we don't know and described the significance and implications of the archaeological evidence.

In the photo on the right, he is pointing to the challenges our native Americans encountered by using a "broomstick with a sharp rock on the end" to provide food. 

 

Sat. 4/14, Brent Manning, Executive Director, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and former Director of the  IDNR spoke on the importance of preserving our forest and conservation.  He also discussed the potential impact of the recently passed "Illinois Forestry Act" that if fully activated will cause economic burden on small land owners by increasing a six fold increase on the taxation of small forests.  The potential impact of this would be to cause small land owners to cut down trees that would then cause massive ecological damage and severe erosion.

 

 

 

During the conference, Eve and Nadia from Chillicothe received Youth Conservation awards from the Illinois Audubon Society for their efforts to aid whooping cranes.  The girls raised over $2500 for the support and conservation of whooping cranes.  After reading of the 17 whooping cranes that died from the storms in Florida this past February, Nadia and Eve folded over 1300 paper cranes for the effort. 

100% of the crane sales went to Operation Migration to promote crane conservation.

 

 

The Spring Gathering also included 11 field trips from Peoria to the surrounding area.  On the North Loop trip to Hennepin-Hopper (Apr 14, 2007), Peoria Audubon's humble webmaster took the photo of an eagle sitting on it's nest south of Lacon.  Although the consensus of the group was that the eagles were likely to still be incubating eggs, a posting 3 days later, with photos in listed through the Central Illinois Birding Forum showed an eaglet present.

Even though the eagle nest was close to the river, The IDNR had arranged for a blind to prevent disturbing the eagles.  You walked about 400 yards through the woods along the road to reach the blind.


Photo Gallery from IAS Spring Gathering Field Trips

Photo Gallery

(Broadband Suggested)

Note: Peoria Audubon Society recommends the Central Illinois Birding Group as a forum for up to date bird sightings.  By joining this group, you can have daily email updates of sightings.

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