Aiken Audubon General Meeting tomorrow Nov 9th. Colorado Springs, CO

[Debbie Barnes]

Come join us! Aiken Audubon programs are free and open to the public.We meet at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife building located at 4255 Sinton Road. Coffee, snacks, and socializing begins at 6:30 pm and programs begin at 7 pm. Please use the back entrance. Sinton Road runs parallel to I-25 on the east side, between Garden of the Gods Road and Fillmore Street.

November 9 (2nd Wednesday)/ Bill Schmoker
Birding to the North Pole

In August, 2015 Bill Schmoker embarked on the US Arctic GEOTRACES Expedition as a PolarTREC teacher. The experience began in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy in early August. For 65 days this polar icebreaker was home to the Coast Guard crew, 49 scientists, and Bill as they transited the Bering and Chukchi Seas en route to deep water basins of the Arctic Ocean and ultimately the Geographic North Pole (marking the first time a US surface ship reached the pole unaccompanied.) After over a month in the pack ice the Healy returned to Dutch Harbor in mid-October. Join Bill as he recounts the unusual birding opportunities he was afforded on this journey, along with other wildlife and natural phenomena he experienced to accompany the cutting-edge physical oceanography that the expedition focused on.

In addition to his 23 years of teaching middle school science in Boulder, Bill is an instructor for the American Birding Association, National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, and Boulder County Nature Association. Bill has embarked on two Arctic Ocean research expeditions as a PolarTREC Teacher and explored Greenland as a National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. A widely published bird/wildlife photographer, author, and public speaker, Bill finds adventure and seeks new knowledge wherever he finds himself, whether gardening in his back yard, on an icebreaker at the North Pole, and everything in between.

Debbie Barnes - Aiken Audubon Secretary

Colorado Springs, CO