News

SABO's Web site may be unavailable briefly over the next 24 hours as we conduct some domain administration. We apologize for any inconvenience.

SABO is testing Google Checkout (now a part of Google Wallet) for accepting online payments for memberships, donations, and activity fees. The transition should be seamless for existing Google Checkout/Google Wallet users. If you don't yet have a Google account or are not yet using Checkout/Wallet, you'll have an opportunity to sign up when you click a link to join SABO, renew an existing membership, make a donation, or register for an event. We welcome payments of dues and fees for tours and workshops via "snail mail," and payment "at the door" is welcome for most walks.

Since we are unable to offer a choice of online payment services, we appreciate your feedback on how Google Checkout meets your payment needs before we make a final decision on the switch.

A special holiday edition of our Hawk Stalk tour of the Sulphur Springs Valley is now open for general registration! This tour on Thanksgiving Friday departs from Casa de San Pedro Bed & Breakfast, convenient to Sierra Vista and Hereford.

For registration or more information, visit the Calendar of Events or go directly to the Holiday Hawk Stalk page.

SABO's winter activities—Hawk Stalks, Whitewater Wetlands Walks, and the Sparrow-phobics Anonymous Mini-Workshop—have been added to the Calendar of Events. Special events include a Thanksgiving Friday Hawk Stalk starting from Casa de San Pedro Bed & Breakfast and a New Year's Day Hawk Stalk for those inspired by the movie The Big Year. We'll look forward to seeing you this winter!

In the process of making a couple of money-saving changes to our phone service, Century Link caused SABO's number to ring to a disconnected line. The problem should be corrected by the middle of next week, but we expect to be unreachable by phone until then. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us by e-mail with questions about programs, trip planning, etc.

In response to dramatic increases in hummingbird activity at feeders following wildfires in Arizona, KAYTEE® Wild Bird Products and Cedar Works® Feeders, both Central Garden and Pet Company brands, are shipping $50,000 of KAYTEE Hummingbird ElectroNectar™ Concentrate and Cedar Works Planter Hummingbird Feeders for distribution to area residents.

The sponsors hope is that encouraging more residents of the affected areas to feed hummingbirds will help to spread out uncomfortably concentrated populations and improve the birds' chances of survival until they return to Mexico for the winter. This will become even more important over the next few weeks as thousands of southbound migrants arrive in the state from as far north as southeastern Alaska.

SABO is directing the project and will distribute free feeders and nectar concentrate at hummingbird banding sessions, local farmers' markets, and the Southwest Wings Birding Festival. Southeastern Arizona residents should check the Calendar of Events for dates and locations where feeders and nectar will be available. For bird lovers in other parts of the country who would like to help, SABO is also accepting donations to support our ongoing hummingbird monitoring and public education programs and purchase of regionally appropriate nectar plants for distribution to private landowners in the affected areas. To contribute, please visit the Arizona Hummingbird Disaster Relief page.

For more on the project, see this post on the blog of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

We'd like to extend a big welcome and thanks to SABO's newest Business Benefactor, Peg Abbott of Naturalist Journeys. Peg, who is based right here in southeastern Arizona (Portal, in the Chiricahua Mountains) offers small group birding and natural history tours. We'll be working together on some cooperative tours led by SABO staff, including a Galapagos expedition in January 2012.

We've added a new photo album following the Monument fire plus some new photos to the hummingbird banding photo album. These and other albums are in the For Members Only section (login required). 

Though the Coronado National Forest is still closed, two first-hand reports on habitats and birding conditions in the Chiricahua Mountains are very encouraging:

Chiricahua Mountains Post-Horseshoe Two Fire birding report (a.k.a., The Search for Mexican Chickadees)

After the Fire: Cave Creek Canyon, Trogon Census