Happy New Year! I want to express my appreciation to the EMAS Board members, volunteers, members and friends who helped make 2014 such a successful year for the chapter. You can help us make 2015 even better by:

Learning more about National Audubon's climate initiative. Don't miss the April 21 meeting when Audubon North Carolina's Executive Director Heather Hahn will discuss how chapters and individuals can make a difference.
Supporting the EMAS 2015 Birdathon. You are helping us preserve birding habitat in Colombia, South America that is so important to our migratory birds.
Joining our regular bird walks at the Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary, special field trips and the Christmas and spring bird counts.
Attending our regular Sanctuary workdays and volunteering to serve on EMAS committees. You don't have to be a birder to help EMAS thrive.
Joining the EMAS list serv and reporting your sightings.

Finally, I encourage you to share this newsletter with friends. Our editors do a fantastic job reporting on issues and educating us about the birds we love.

Thanks and Good Birding!

Tom Tribble

President, EMAS Board of Directors

The Buncombe County Christmas Bird Count by Doug Johnston

40 years and counting!

That is how long the Buncombe Christmas Bird Count has been carried out. There might have been some missed years, but that's still a long string of records. It is not as long as some counts though. The first Christmas Bird Counts were held on Christmas day in 1900. Folks in the early Audubon society thought up the idea of counting live birds as an alternative to the tradition of "Christmas Side Hunts". These hunts were carried out by hunters who competed to see who could shoot the most birds (and mammals too, I gather). All birds were fair game, so the winner was the person who had the biggest pile of dead things at the end of the day.

Since that first Audubon Christmas count with 27 people in 25 circles, the count has grown. We will have to wait a month or two for the overall results of this past count, but the count of a year ago which was number 114 and carried out in many countries throughout the Americas, had 71,659 people in 2,408 circles counting 2,403 species. Our recent count, on December 21st, had 29 participants, ten of whom had not been involved in a count before.

For count details and map of the count circle, click here.

Getting Wild on the Parkway

March 17, 7 p.m.

EMAS General Meeting

Reuter Center, UNC Asheville

Though most people think

of the Blue Ridge Parkway

as a long road with beautiful views it's much more than that. With more than 200 species of birds, almost 100 fish species and 2000+ different vascular plants it is one of the most biologically diverse units of the National Park Service. Bob Cherry, Wildlife Biologist for the Blue Ridge Parkway, will share the latest information on the Parkway's increasing list of wildlife and talk about the natural systems they depend on to survive. Join him to learn why the Blue Ridge Parkway is more than just a road.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

The 18th annual Great Backyard Bird Count takes place February 13-16. Launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, the Great Backyard Bird Count was the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time. Registered participants count birds for 15 or

more minutes for one to four days and then submit their list. Last year more than 144,000 lists were turned in! The birds can be in your own yard or seen on an outing. For more information on how to register and to report your sightings, go to www.birdcount.org.

EMAS will have three outings in which the trip leader will turn in the list of birds seen. These walks are open to EMAS members and the public. You don't have to sign up, just show up! There will be no rain/snow dates. If the walk is cancelled due to bad weather, the leader will post this on the EMAS website (www.emasnc.org) and the EMAS listserve by 9:00 p.m. the evening before.

For details on the walks, follow this link.

EMAS Speaker's Bureau

If you are a member of another group, club, or organization in need of a program, we have EMAS members ready to present colorful PowerPoints on a number of natural history topics, primarily relating to birds. Subjects range from beginning birding to backyard bird feeding to research on coastal birds. Featured programs are also offered on individual bird species including Hummingbirds, Bluebirds, and Birds of Prey. And for those arm chair explorers, we have travelogues on birding spots around the world. Please contact Gail Lankford (whocooksforyou@skyrunner.net) or Tom Tribble (TNTribble@gmail.com) if you would like to arrange for one of our speakers to present to your group.

For a complete list of topics please click here.

Beaver Bits

Text by Vin Stanton and Photos by Jay Wherley

The Red-bellied Woodpecker is often reported on the Great Backyard Bird Count as a Red-headed Woodpecker.
After seeing the two side by side, this confusion will be short-lived! Both of these woodpeckers can be found in the mountains, with the Red-bellied the much more common species. They run about the same height at 9.25 inches.

Red-headed Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

The Downy Woodpecker can in some regards be considered the little cousin of the Hairy Woodpecker. There are slight differences to look for (check your bird guides), but the one thing I notice is the size of the bill. The Downy bill is small compared to the Hairy bill. The Downy size is about 6.75 in. with the Hairy being 9.25 in.

Hairy Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Marilyn Westphal contributed the following regarding confusion between the Carolina Chickadee and the Black-capped Chickadee:

"In areas where Carolina and Black-capped Chickadee ranges overlap it can be very difficult to tell the two species apart, especially because they readily hybridize."

To help determine the difference, read Marilyn's complete explanation here.

Elisha Mitchell Audubon Society | emas@emasnc.org | PO Box 18711 Asheville, NC 28814