Since 2004, the IOS Grants Program has awarded multiple grants to applicants conducting projects relating to birds and/or birding in Illinois. Funding has been provided from a variety of sources including individual donations from IOS members and friends, donations from birding and bird conservation organizations and local birding groups around the state, the Gull Frolic, Big Day pledges, and more. We couldn’t offer this program without the generosity and support from the Illinois birding community!

Each year we receive many applications, 2024 (our 21st year) is no different, with four proposals submitted and the deadline still ahead. The submissions will be reviewed in detail by our Grants team, and we are striving to fund as many of the proposals as possible. We are hoping to notify applicants if they will receive funding by May 19th.

Many come from graduate students at various universities around Illinois, to support their research on birds. Some requests are projects in their 2nd or 3rd year of field research.

The IOS Grants are important on multiple levels:

• They provide critical funding for bird research in Illinois, particularly when other funding sources are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
• They promote scientific research and education in order to improve knowledge and awareness of birds in Illinois.

Supporting the IOS Grants program is one way that the birding community can show how we value the commitment and dedication of the applicants doing bird-related research. By donating to the IOS Grants program, individuals like you are supporting the work that builds our future, helping maintain and expand high quality habitat, identifying and mediating conservation issues, and ensuring that birds will continue to thrive in Illinois.

Please donate what you can, contact your friends, neighbors, family, local clubs and organizations, and ask them to help. IOS will help combine contributions to fund requests. Any amount is appreciated! If you or your organization would like to fully fund a request, we will help you contact the recipient and make the award yourself, if desired.

To make a contribution

• Preferred method for contributions is to donate online on the IOS website. Click the Donate tab and designate “Grants Program donation” in the menu. Click here to donate online.

• If donating by check, checks can be made out to the Illinois Ornithological Society and mailed. Please email grants@illinoisbirds.org to let us know to expect a check in the mail. 

Mail checks to:
Illinois Ornithological Society
c/o Grants Program
PO Box 931
Lake Forest, IL 60045

Thank you for your support!
IOS Grants Team

Dustin Weidner
Grants Program Director
Weidner: 214-697-9266
grants@illinoisbirds.org

The post Funding for the 2024 IOS Grants Program appeared first on Illinois Audubon Society.

Birding-related activities have proved themselves a great distraction in 2020.  The IOS Big Sit taking place from Sep 24-26 was a big hit with individuals seeking a bit of fun, social interaction, outdoor activities and good-humored competition while easily distancing and remaining safe.

Maybe the team names should have been subject to competition, given their creative nature!  Sedentary…sharpies?  Pelicans gone batty.  No Egrets.  Or this one, that came with a nearly one-page explanation:  Big Marsh Zugun-Sitta!

One team however had the name and the number of species to take the overall lead in the competition!  Kudos to Colin Dobson, Aerin Tedesco and Zachary Sutton of the COVID coRvids for a highly productive Big Sit at Lake Shelbyville in Moultrie County yielding 92 species of birds, including 13 species of shorebirds and 12 species of Warblers.  Wondering if Aerin will follow with a Covid Corvids band?

On the financial front and from the onset, one team crushed the fundraising aspect of the Big Sit.  The Rollin’s Raptors, led by legendary green birder Beau Schaefer and including Andy Stewart, Gustavo Ustariz, Steve Mulhall and Jerry Hampton brought in $1202!  Hurray for the Rollin’s Raptors!

Our current and past Illinois Young Birders stepped up to the challenge, with 3 Bruhs with Some Bins and the Youthful Jaegers battling it out at Montrose Point.  The name was an oracle of sort, as the Youthful Jaegers stole the show on both species (84) and funds ($589) achieved.

Our young winners will receive beautiful handmade peanut feeders very generously donated by Tim Joyce of Wild Birds Unlimited in Glenview.

The IOS board is deeply grateful to every Big Sit participant, as well as to each donor, for their energy, enthusiasm and great generosity.  Together we raised $5255, which will enable IOS to continue strengthening our key offerings, such as our Illinois birds scientific research grants, our Illinois Young Birders programs, the Meadowlark journal and our field trips.

The post IOS 2020 Big Sit Fundraising Results appeared first on Illinois Audubon Society.

Drawing of Passenger Pigeon left by Kevin Sierzega

Of Mourning Doves and Passenger Pigeons

By Sheryl DeVore 

You, no doubt, noticed the gorgeous front and back cover of this issue, created by Kevin Sierzega, whose work has graced Meadowlark before.

We asked Kevin to do this drawing to commemorate the demise of the Passenger Pigeon, whose numbers once seemed to be so abundant that humans thought this species would last forever.  Of course, we now know that extinction can happen to any species, no matter how numerous.

The 100th anniversary of the death of the last Passenger Pigeon occurred in 2014. The last of the species, Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo Sept. 1, 1914.

In 2014, much was done to call attention to this important milestone, including, of course, Joel Greenberg’s book, “A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction.”

We birders all know that at one time, Passenger Pigeons filled the Illinois skyline from horizon to horizon.

But now it’s 2015, the Passenger Pigeon is long gone, and we have a story in this issue about another species in the order Columbiformes, the Mourning Dove. The article, “Lead shot ingestion rate and effects in Mourning Doves,” by Stephanice C. Plautz, et. al, addresses the issue of how one of North America’s most numerous birds is being poisoned from spent lead shot. According to Plautz, more than 400 million individual Mourning Doves have been counted in the fall in the United States. “However, Mourning Dove populations may be declining,” she writes. Her story, which begins on page 2, explains why.

Can the Mourning Dove ever go the way of the Passenger Pigeon? It seems ludicrous. Certainly, we humans would never let something like what happened to the Passenger Pigeon in the 20^th century occur in the 21^st century. Right?

The post Meadowlark editorial on Passenger Pigeon appeared first on Illinois Audubon Society.

For the field trips we split into groups and birded  Lost Mound Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi Palisades State Park, Spring Lake, Ayers Sand Prairie, Thompson Causeway and Lock & Dam 13. We birded the grounds of the Chestnut Mountain Resort and watched nighthawks from the back deck. We birded along roadsides and even checked for warblers in a pine stand at a trailer dump station. (It wouldn’t be a real birding trip without a dump or sewage pond would it?) Bugs? Not too many. Rain? A few showers. But mostly it was dry and birdy.

A preliminary tally puts us at 150 species of birds for the weekend including some real treats like Brewster’s Warbler, Cerulean Warblers, Kentucky Warbler, Yellow-throated Warblers, Blue Grosbeaks, Eastern Whip-poor-wills, a singing Winter Wren,  and at least three endangered species including Loggerhead Shrike, Yellow-headed Blackbird and Common Gallinule. We were serenaded on and off all day to migrant and nesting warblers as well as Baltimore and Orchard Orioles and other species. We relished every look at the magnificent American White Pelicans gliding overhead and Bald Eagles soaring or perched in trees.

We particularly want to thank Urs Geiser for all the work of planning and organizing the weekend, The stewards of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge for escorting and leading our groups into the restricted portion of the Lost Mound Refuge, and Dan Williams, Matt Fraker, Bob Fisher and Urs Geiser for leading field trips.

Special thanks go to all the IOS members who attended and lent their sharp eyes and ears to the group effort as well as sharing their good humor and boundless curiosity and interest in all things natural history.

The post Spring birding weeknd: Great birds, friends and scenery appeared first on Illinois Audubon Society.

 A five-year project targeting conservation of the imperiled and iconic Cerulean Warbler and focusing on the states of 

Read more about this exciting project that will help one of Illinois’ rarest and most beautiful warbler species.

The post Cerulean Warbler gets help from major grant appeared first on Illinois Audubon Society.