December Program - Sharpen your Identification Skills And prepare for the Christmas Bird Counts Monday, December 21st, 1998, 7:30 PM Chico Creek Nature Center 1968 East Eighth St., Chico, 95928 At the December meeting we are going to once again have our annual program to help you sharpen your bird I.D. skills. This program is very timely with the annual Christmas Bird Counts coming up. This practice will also help you in your daily birding. We all know how frustrating our feathered friends can be sometimes! The program will include both a contest of identification skills using slides, and some pointers afterwards on the field marks that you can use to identify these birds. There will be prizes for those with the most correct ID's. The more advanced birders in the chapter will be excluded from the competition, just to make it fair. This was a lot of fun last year and we are planning on improving it this year. Audubon Calendars Make Great Holiday Gifts We've picked up a number of the National Audubon Society 1999 calendars, which will be available at the December meeting. We will have both the wall and desktop calendars for sale; the price is $10 each, which is about a 10% discount over what you'd have to pay in a store for these items. The wall calendar is entitled "Bluebirds & Other Backyard Songbirds", and the desktop version is the page-a-day style simply entitled "Audubon Birds". Tom Rogers Memorial Update As you may be aware, as a memorial to Tom Rogers, we are planning to build a bird blind in a suitable location within the grounds of the Chico Oxidation Ponds. Our timetable has been delayed due to the considerable construction and relocation that is taking place at that facility. We will keep you apprised of the situation and report as soon as we are confident that we can proceed.