Next BAS General Meeting
The next general meeting of the Birmingham Audubon Society will be held September 18, 2008, at the Birmingham Zoo Auditorium at 7:00 pm. The speaker will be Mark Berte who will present, Alabama’s 1901 Constitution: It’s a Thick Book and a Big Impact on our Environment. We have all heard about Alabama’s antiquated constitution. What remains unclear for many is how constitutional reform will benefit Alabama’s environment. This program is a must for anyone interested in conserving our environment for future generations.

Prior to serving at the ACCR Foundation, Mark was the Director of the statewide Constitutional Reform Education Campaign at Greater Birmingham Ministries, which is an interfaith organization that not only provides direct services to the low income community in the Birmingham area, but also works to address the systemic causes of poverty.

Mark received his Bachelor’s degree at Birmingham Southern College and his Master's degree from the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Currently, he is a member of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama Roundtable, is a graduate of the 2006 class of Leadership Mobile and 2007 class of Leadership Alabama.

Please come early at 6:45 to socialize and enjoy some refreshments. Guests are encouraged and welcome.

Field Trips
For September field trips, download this pdf file. For more information on upcoming field events, see the September Flicker Flashes for a list of all planned field trips for the year.

Coming Events of Interest
There will be a Shades Creek Cleanup on September 27, 8 am - 12 pm, at Samford University on Lakeshore Drive, West Gate Entrance. For more information see the September Flicker Flashes.

The Alabama Coastal BirdFest celebrates five years of birding this fall, with more than 20 planned events, including guided birding tours, dinners and speakers, and the free, daylong Bird and Conservation Expo. Set to greet the fall migration, when millions of birds make their annual trip from all over North America to winter homes in Central and South America, the 2008 BirdFest is planned for Oct. 16-19. As last year, all of the trips will depart from the Five Rivers Delta Resource Center on the causeway, conveniently located half way between Mobile and the Eastern Shore.

For more information visit: http://www.alabamacoastalbirdfest.com/

Saturday, September 27th will be the date for our 44th annual BAS Fall Bird Count. For more information see the September Flicker Flashes.

The 2008 Hummingbird Migration Celebration at the Strawberry Plains Audubon Center in Holly Springs, MS, will take place September 5-7, 2008. Gates are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Strawberry Plains Audubon Center, 285 Plains Road, Holly Springs, MS, 38635. For more information see the September Flicker Flashes.

Upcoming Scholarships and Grants
The Birmingham Audubon Society announces its Fall 2008 Minigrants Program. The deadline for this program is September 27, 2008. More information can be downloaded here as a Word file. To download the applicatin form, click here for a Word file or here for a pdf file. A brief summary description follows.

The Birmingham Audubon Society (BAS) mission statement is “For conservation and greater knowledge of birds, as well as other wildlife.” To support our mission we are offering mini-grants up to $300 to support conservation and environmental education in Jefferson and Shelby counties. Monies may be used for field trips to places such as the Alabama Wildlife Center at Oak Mountain State Park, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, the Birmingham Zoo, the Cahaba River (on the Cahaba River Society CLEAN education program), the McWane Science Center, Ruffner Mountain Nature Center, and the Southern Environmental Center at Birmingham Southern College. Additional options are to bring speakers to the classroom, and to create outdoor classrooms, ponds, bird feeding stations, nature trails, gardens or other types of natural habitats. See below for details and contact information about these recommendations. Projects, however, are not limited to these suggestions.

About the BAS Website
Welcome to the Birmingham Audubon Society Web site. Please drop an e-mail to the Webmaster if any mistakes are found, or if you have suggestions. Please note! We now store the Flicker Flashes newsletter in "pdf" format. This means you will need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read these files (most recently-purchased computers have this installed). If you need to install Adobe Reader, it is free on Adobe's site and can be downloaded by clicking here. Beware that the pdf files are large and will take several minutes to download if you connect to the Internet using a modem.