Photo: Courtesy of Dr. David Luther
When: Sunday, June 6, 3:00-4:30pm
Where: VIRTUAL
Cost: FREE!
Join us for our Annual Meeting and Audubon Afternoon!
Audubon Society of Northern Virginia will hold its annual membership meeting virtually, on Sunday, June 6 from 3:00 to 3:30 PM. The membership will vote on incoming Directors and new terms for Officers. The slate of proposed Board Members and Officers is below.
The membership will also vote on amendments to ASNV’s Bylaws. You can review the draft Bylaws here. Please direct any questions or comments on the draft Bylaws to President@audubonva.org.
ASNV’s Treasurer will present a summary of the budget for fiscal 2022, which begins on July 1.
We will also recognize the five Birdathon teams that raised funds for ASNV while trying to find as many bird species as possible in a 24-hour period.
Dr. David Luther
At 3:30 PM, we will welcome Dr. David Luther to our Audubon Afternoon. Urban environments are among the most highly modified habitats on the planet. David’s research has focused on how human activity has modified habitats and altered ecological processes around the world. Acoustic communication is a critical component of reproductive success in many species. His lab at George Mason University studies how human noise affects the behavior and survival of a diversity of birds species.
This event is free, but registration is required.
Election of Board Members and Officers
The following people are proposed as members of the ASNV Board of Directors:
Ron Grimes
Ron has been interested in the natural world since he was a kid. He caught the birding bug in college when he took an ornithology course which included weekend birding outings in southeastern Virginia.
Ron is a Virginia Master Naturalist and currently serves as the vice president of the Fairfax Chapter. He previously served as the treasurer. He leads VMN students on birding field trips to Huntley Meadows twice a year. An avid scuba diver, Ron tries to incorporate some bird watching into every dive trip.
Ron retired after 31 years in federal law enforcement, which took him on assignments in California, Florida, Japan, and Germany. He currently works as a contract financial investigator at the FBI.
Adam Jenkins
Adam grew up on a Kiwifruit orchard in rural New Zealand where he was homeschooled until middle school with his four siblings. His love of nature stemmed from an avid interest in the natural world, playing outside, and participating in a conservation club from a very young age. New Zealand’s rich ecosystems supported by many bird species in part led him to complete a Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Auckland. He is passionate about influencing and supporting local conservation efforts and thrives on opportunities to bring people to a place where they develop a deeper value for the natural world.
In his early professional career Adam was an environmental consultant and now he works as a technology and change advocate at Esri. His current position supports conservation non-profits such as The Nature Conservancy, National Audubon Society, World Resources Institute, Conservation International, NatureServe, and others. In this role he focuses on the nexus of geospatial technology, science, conservation, and planning in order to bring people, processes, and technology together to help solve some of the most important challenges facing our rapidly changing world.
Libby Lyons
Libby Lyons is a life-long nature lover and was fortunate because for many years her job and love of nature were well-aligned. She is retiring in spring 2021 after almost 25 years with the National Science Foundation. She was a Biology professor for 10 years before that. Although her training was in plant science, she considers herself a “lapsed botanist,” with birds as her major passion now. She birdwatched here and there and mostly internationally for many years, including a summer ecology course in Costa Rica in graduate school, a year in Kenya with the family, a year in Japan without the family, and trips tagged onto her international work travel.
It was only after the kids “fledged” and left home a few years ago that she focused on US birds again, especially in Virginia, her home for more than 25 years. She tries to birdwatch whenever she can, has participated in several Christmas Bird Counts, and has made presentations about her nature adventures to local schools, community groups, and bird clubs. She is a big fan of citizen science and of using birdwatching to help a broader range of Americans understand more about nature conservation and its importance to our planet.
Musa Murawih
You could say that Musa Murawih was born and raised in nature. To be exact, it was in a tent to a Bedouin family in central Sudan. It was there that he learned from a young age to identify all living things found in the vast area that his family roamed. Parents and older siblings passed on this common knowledge to young children, in a community which saw itself as part of nature, not separate from it. The survivalist lifestyle of his early years implanted in him a keen respect for the environment and a clear view of the need to conserve and protect natural resources.
Musa moved to the United States in 1999 to pursue a Master’s degree in international relations at the University of Denver. Ever since, he has travelled to 41 US states in pursuit of birds and other natural wonders. His birding trips have taken him to Alaska, Nova Scotia, Florida, the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, SE Arizona, and many places in between. Internationally, he has birded in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He’s a member of the Northern Virginia Bird Club and the Friends of Huntley Meadows.
Since he moved to Virginia in 2010, Musa has taken part in the Christmas Bird Count and the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas. This year (2021) he will be co-leading a birding and nature program at Upton Hill Park in Arlington. The program is intended for underrepresented communities. He will also be responsible for a Breeding Bird Survey route in the Virginia mountains this summer.
A visit in 2004 to Crested Butte, CO during the peak of wildflower season enchanted him so much that he turned his Bowie, MD backyard into a native wildflower garden. The garden was later certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a wildlife habitat. He currently keeps another native garden at his Northern Virginia home.
The following board members are proposed for additional 3-year terms:
Gerry Abbot
Gerry became an ASNV member in 2007 but relocated to Shanghai in 2012. He now lives in an Audubon Certified Wildlife Sanctuary in McLean. As a amateur nature photographer, he soon discovered that viewing birds and their habitat can be a very interesting and rewarding activity. He participates in Christmas Bird Counts, Winter Waterfowl surveys and Cornell Feeder Watch as well as many of the ASNV and Audubon Naturalist Society activities. Although Gerry traveled extensively and lived 20 years overseas, he is now retired and looks forward to working on new challenges and opportunities with ASNV.
Connie Ericson
Connie has been an Audubon member for many years, an Arlington County resident since 2001 and an enthusiastic but sporadic birdwatcher since 1990. In 2018 she retired from an 18-year career as an environmental lawyer, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and real estate financing.
Before becoming a lawyer, she worked for more than 15 years with environmental and safety regulations in the oil and gas industry. In the last several years she has worked with her neighborhood civic association, the Arlington County Civic Federation and several ad hoc community groups to respond to environmental concerns raised by development in Arlington County.
Dixie Sommers
Dixie Sommers has been an Audubon member since 1986 and became a serious birder after moving back to the Washington area from Ohio in 2006, adding to her long interest in nature photography and travel. She is an avid e-bird user and enjoys using photography to help learn the birds, and sharing her photos on www.ddpix.smugmug.com.
In addition to favorite places in Virginia, her recent birding travels include Colombia, Tanzania, Texas, California, and Mexico. She is also a board member for the Virginia Society of Ornithology and the Friends of Dyke Marsh. Dixie lives in Alexandria, Virginia and retired from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics after a long career of counting jobs and workers. Now she counts birds!