South Mountain Airs

The Newsletter of the South Mountain Audubon Society

August – September 2014 Volume XXXIX #3 – The E-mail Edition

SMAS Annual Club Picnic

Monday August 11th – Annual SMAS Picnic

The Annual SMAS club picnic will be held at Ms. Laura Hershey's home, 8164 Carlisle Pike, York Springs, PA, 17372. Dinner will be at 6 PM.

Please bring a dish to share with other attendees. All are welcome to come at 5pm. Please bring a place setting
for yourself and any others in your group. Beverages such as water, soda and iced tea will be provided; but for
those with specific preferences, or that are diet specific, please bring those with you.
And do not forget to psych yourselves up for the “Annual SMAS Bean Bag” competition.
Directions: Northbound on US #15 at the York Springs exit, go East on PA #94, Carlisle Pike. #8164 will be on
the right shortly East of the interchange.

President's Message
!!! HELP NEEDED !!!

In January 2015, SMAS will need to vote on the selection of Chapter Officers and Board Members for the new
year. My two years as President will be over and we will need a new President. Our constitution does not allow for the
same person to be president for more than two consecutive years.

All other Chapter leaders / Board positions are for a one year term.

Another SMAS Chapter position that will need a volunteer is the Publicity Chair. You DO NOT have to be a
great birder, or even a birder, to hold these positions. All that is needed is enthusiasm and interest. Please consider volunteering with SMAS. We are a fun group.

Deb Siefken,
President, SMAS

UPCOMING SMAS PROGRAMS & PRESENTATIONS

Unless indicated otherwise, all SMAS Programs are held at the Adams County Agricultural Resource Center,
670 Old Harrisburg Road, Gettysburg, PA at 7:30 PM. A room number for the SMAS meeting will be posted on the front lobby entry inner door.

We've posted the information on our total activities' schedule at the end of this edition.

UPCOMING MONTHLY PROGRAMS

Monday September 8 th - “Your Backyard Geology” presented by Jeri Jones

Jeri Jones will cover a number of topics relevant to our area's geology. Topis will include a prehistoric quarry at
Carbaugh Run Preserve, the Gettysburg Battlefield, nearby copper mines, Caledonia Furnace, Ski Liberty, newly
discovered dinosaur footprints, and a reptile find in Gettysburg.

UPCOMING SMAS FIELD TRIPS

Contact Mike O'Brien, Field Trip Chair, as necessary for more information on all Field Trips, the annual
Christmas Bird Count and the Spring Migration Count: 717.642.6676 Res / maddogobrien@gmail.com E-mail.
Please let the Leader know in advance if you plan to attend any field trip, especially if you plan to go direct.
Trips are subject to weathering out, especially in the colder months, or otherwise being changed. In addition, if
we have only one or two known attendees, we may cancel or reschedule a given field trip. We cannot alert you
unless we hear from you.

Friday September 26th The "Pulpit" Hawk Watch at Tuscarora Ridge

Hawk watching trip to Tuscarora Ridge summit where US #30 passes over the crest of the ridge near
McConnellsburg, PA. Long called "The Pulpit," this site provides good views of approaching raptors.
Broad-winged Hawks will still be going through at this time. Kestrels and Red-tailed Hawks should be
present in good numbers and most other raptors are possible at this time. Short and easy access from
where we will park to the observation area. No facilities (McConnellsburg within driving distance).
Meet in parking area between Burger King and CVS on US Rte #30 (York Street) near its intersection
with US #15 in the shopping area where Staples and CVS are located - across the street from Walmart.
We will carpool to the extent possible. Bring a chair if you wish as well as personal/food/drink items.
This trip is subject to weathering out especially in the event of precipitation.
Bring apparel as dictated by the weather. Meeting time is 8:30 AM with return in mid-afternoon.

Feathery Factoid (The Quiz Version) ;

Do darters (Anhingas) often take off from the surface of the water?

HEY!! Checkout our South Mountain Audubon Society Website!!!

SMAS has a Website. The home page has some general information and synopses of Chapter activities as well as
a number of links to other informational aspects. These include the Calendar, Board members and officers,
Chapter meeting minutes, current and archival newsletter editions, and links to a number of other Adams County
organizations as well as other county, state and national groups and organizations.

We are also working to put up some location specific area checklists. Many of these are in place. All are
encouraged to offer suggestions on what you would like to see on the website. Contact info is on the site.

Accessing the SMAS Newsletter

A great feature of having the Newsletter on-line and receiving it via e-mail, is that you can always access a
misplaced or discarded issue at a future date. You can access the Newsletter in several ways.

First, if you do not routinely discard your emails or you retain selected items in your in-box or transfer them to a
saved information folder or similar, you can always access them at a future date on your own system.
Second, we archive the electronic edition on the internet at the following url: perch.es

Simply copy the url and paste it into your browser search box or just type it in (Clicking usually will not work).
The first header that appears is for the current (most recent) issue. In addition, there is a heading, by year, for
past quarterly issues which we archive on the site. We have put the past issues here since we started the
electronic edition.

Third, you can access it on the internet at the Yahoo.com Chat Group site, Adams County Nature Chat
(AdCoNaChat). Presence of the information on this site may lag the Newsletter somewhat.
We post our SMAS field trips, meeting dates and topics, special events like an annual picnic, annual luncheon,
and other club news on the calendar. There are directions uploaded to the files section for some areas we have
trips to, and also, we often upload the species list from completed field trips and Christmas Bird Counts on the
Files area.

You can access the AdCoNaChat web-site at the link provided below. This is the link to the home page and from there you can access posts and messages by members, the Calendar and Files section, and much more. Copy and paste the following url into your browser search box: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdCoNaChat/

And, of course, per information above re the new SMAS Website, you can reference current & past issues there.

OTHER SMAS RELATED INFORMATION

Board Members Point of Contact Telephone Email address
President Deb Siefken 677-4830 siefkend@embarqmail.com
Vice-President Carole Simon 337-1662 carolesimon@embarqmail.com
Secretary Linette Mansberger 495-8137 lmcopperhead@aol.com
Treasurer Mike Bertram 352-7936 the2nomads@centurylink.net
Director At Large Nancy Locher 334-4768 nclocher@embarqmail.com
Director At Large Rusty Ryan 642-9293 rryan@adamscounty.us
Director At Large Cy Deitz 253-0297 sdeitz1630@comcast.net

Committee Chairs

Conservation Emily Cost 642-5840 emilycost@yahoo.com
Education Emily Cost 642-5840 emilycost@yahoo.com
Field Trips Mike O'Brien 642-6676 maddogobrien@gmail.com
Hospitality Vacant
Membership Mike O'Brien 642-6676 maddogobrien@gmail.com
Programs Bob Brandt 677-8323 brantownb@aol.com
Publicity Elizabeth Weller 339-8443 amazingheartfarm@comcast.net
Newsletter Mike O'Brien 642-6676 maddogobrien@gmail.com

SMAS Annual Schedule Information

Regular SMAS Monthly Program Meetings are held Jan / Mar / May / June / Sept / Oct / Nov.
Unless indicated otherwise, are all meetings are held on Mondays at 7:30 PM at the Adams County Agricultural
Center. Please see complete information at the beginning of this and every Newsletter in case there is any
variation by quarter. Please check individual programs in each issue in the event of a change in times and / or
venue.

Field Trips are normally held monthly in Jan / Feb / Mar / April / May / Jun / Sept / Oct / Nov. In December we
substitute the annual Christmas Bird Count for the monthly field trip.

Some of these monthly field trips traditionally repeat each year, such as the Christmas Bird Count and the Migration Count in May. We usually go to a nearby hawk watch site in late September or early October. The Annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is held by design between 14 Dec and 5 Jan. For SMAS, this is in lieu of a regular field trip. We schedule our SMAS CBC on the first available Saturday after 13 Dec. In the event of really bad weather, we may cancel and reschedule.

The Annual Luncheon has been traditionally held in April, in lieu of, the regular monthly meeting.

Our SMAS Annual Picnic and get together is held in August on the second Monday. This is “Bring A Dish” to
share and the kickoff is 5 PM with dinner at 6 PM. In addition to bringing a dish to share, attendees should bring
their own place setting materials. Drinks and some type of main dish(es) will be provided. See the summer
Newsletter edition for details on times and directions.

All meetings, field trips and other activities are subject to weathering out or other cancellation reasons. If you are
on our email list (receiving our Newsletters and other information) you will get an email notification as soon as
the decision is made. Otherwise, if there is some question based on the weather or some other issue, please
contact the field trip leader or someone from the list of Board Members / Committee Chairpersons applicable to your question(s).

Feathery Factoid Quiz Answer:

No. Soaked birds prefer to climb out on overhanging vegetation prior to taking flight, apparently to dry off.