Photo: American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla) by David Lewis.

By simply drinking the right coffee, coffee lovers can help preserve over 250,000 acres of prime tropical habitat and biodiversity, save birds, family farms, workers jobs and the Earth we all share.  

On Saturday, November 17th, Western Cuyahoga Audubon will be doing a Hotspot Birding Field Trip at Sandy Ridge Reservation in Lorain County. We’ll be focusing on waterfowl and water birds primarily. It will be the heart of the waterfowl migration, particularly for dabbling ducks. Birds like Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Green-wing Teal, and Mallards, should all be in good number here in mid-November.

Lukas Padegimas takes us on a tour of Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve and some of it's unique areas. In addition, Lukas talks about how he got started as a young birder and future conservationist.

Doug Hardy founded and runs the Norwich Vermont Birds & Beans Coffee Club. Since November 2012 the Club has purchased nearly 6,000 pounds of our Smithsonian certified shade grown, Organic and Fair Trade ‘Bird Friendly®’ supporting migratory birds and family coffee farms.

Photo: Pileated Woodpecker (Hylatomus pileatus) © Ray Burns

Observing by P O'Connor.

Photo: Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) © Ray Burns

Hotspot Birders at Sandy Ridge by Kaoru Tsubone

Volunteers 2018 by B Merkel

Photo: Veery (Catharus fuscescens) © Ray Burns

LENSC Birders Feb 2017 by Penny O'Connor

Photo: Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) © Ray Burns

Christmas Bird Count-Lakewood Circle, Olmsted Falls Area 2017

Volunteers staffing WCAS educational display by Mary Anne Romito

(L to R) Nancy Howell with Julie Zickefoose

Photo: Barred Owl (Strix varia) © Ray Burns

Volunteer Becky Robinson and Members Setup Auction

LENSC Evening Walk 5162018 by Penny O’Connor

Kim Langley, Member drinking bird-friendly coffee Dec 2017

​“Organizations grow with a diversity of volunteers and the abilities, skills and ideas brought by those volunteers. In planning and preparing for the 2018-2019 Western Cuyahoga year, we would like to have additional volunteers come forward and participate.”  

An enterprising teacher at the Cambridge, Ohio school who runs the ‘Bobcat Coffee Company’ uses Birds and Beans coffee for a project that  gives special needs students the opportunity to learn how to run a small business. Projects like this make a difference for birds, habitat, farming families and all youth throughout the Americas.

Photo: Environmental Layers by Alice Merkel at Cleveland Metroparks, Rocky River Reservation, Valley Pkwy, North Olmsted, OH 44070.

Now more than ever, it is imperative Ohio conservation interests connect, communicate, and collaborate as a united front for nature and the environment.

In 2018 Year of the Bird, the Bald Eagle, Kirtland's Warbler, Least Tern, Piping Plover, Rufa Red Knot and the Whooping Crane have been Federally-listed as threatened, endangered, proposed, or candidate species' by the USFWS in 8 midwest states. Here are some simple ways to help protect birds in our area, perhaps your yard, neighborhood, and beyond.

Photo: Natural Landscape by Alice Merkel at Cleveland Metroparks, Rocky River Reservation, Valley Pkwy, North Olmsted, OH 44070

WCAS’s Carbon Offset Project, begun several years ago and modeled after an effort launched at the 2011 Midwest Birding Symposium, is a way for members to make contributions that offset their use of carbon while participating in birding activities (or any other activities) that requires travel. ​

A conversation about the new children's book, "Look, See the Farm!" with Bill Wilson (Author and Birds & Beans Founder) and Katie Fallon (Author). Learn about two girls who visit their grandparents' organic farm and discover the wild birds that live there too—meadowlark, wood thrush, barn swallow, screech-owl, and many more.

An early morning Spring visit to watch Rocky River Eagles and Eaglets feeding and parental nest-building activities. 

Photo: Irv Oslin, Ashland Times-Gazette.com

What it's all about: Bringing the community out to see nesting bobolinks and other natural phenomena at Byers Woods, which is designated an Important Birding Area. Photo by Irv Oslin.

Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society multimedia stories, news, and reports are shared far and wide across the web. We need your help right now to sustain web operations and continue chapter public outreach for birds and habitat conservation education.

Photo: Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis) by Chuck Slusarczyk Jr.

The partnership between Black River Audubon and Lorain County Community College (LCCC) recognizes the 21-acre preserve as an important resource for the college ecological curriculum and serves as an example to the community of the need for conservation of meadow environments.

Squinting under a blazing sun and stiffened by cold air, 25 brave birders from Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society and Kirtland Bird Club teamed up at LaDue Reservoir in Geauga County for a joint field trip on Sunday, March 25, 2018.

Many of us found ourselves out in the frigid weather searching and hunting to get a glimpse of the rare and famed “Snowy Owl”.  The winter of 2017-2018 was exceptional with numerous sightings of this huge beautiful owl. Weighing 64 ounces, 23” in length, and having a wingspan of 52”, Snowy’s tower over other owls.

​Tom Romito of Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society discusses the fundraising efforts Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society is undertaking. "The reason that we raise funds at all is to sustain our organization and support the National Audubon Society’s strategic goal of protecting bird populations."

We undertook bird surveys on organic coffee farms in Nicaragua and on organic dairy farms in Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Vermont. These 2014 surveys turned up significant numbers of birds – both species and individuals – many more than were on the eco-deserts of sun/chemical coffee farms or on large scale mono-crop farms in the US.

At my home, the window with the view of the bird feeder is my favorite window. If you have one of these views in your home, I would imagine you delight in the surprises and tranquility it can bring. As the seasons change, the tiny feathered visitors change also. 

When March finds us, we can get truly excited both in the freedom that warmer temperatures bring and the beginning movements of birds back into and through the region.

Right now, the fifteen chapters in Ohio are essentially operating as independent islands without interaction with each other or the National Audubon Society. What we, Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society, wants to do is to spearhead an initiative to reinvigorate COAC and bring the chapters back together.

"Mary’s Journals" is a collection of work, bird, camping, and travel short stories of interest to anyone who is passionate about Nature and outdoor experiences.  ​

Fundraising for important communication projects, like Lights Out Cleveland, has gotten specific companies downtown to agree to turn out their lights during migration so that birds will not be hurt so much.

Above: Sunrise at San Juan del Rio Coco, Nicaragua. The highlands of northern Nicaragua, a productive shade coffee-growing region and refuge for migratory birds in winter. Photo by Scott Weidensaul.

Americans drink over a third of the world’s coffee. If we all buy and drink Bird Friendly certified coffee, songbirds, farmers and future generations of bird lovers will be sure that the birds return every year.

Image: The 117th Christmas Bird Count Map of Active Circles along the southern shores of Lake Erie. Image: National Audubon maps on ArcGIS

As this is being written, leaves, rather than snow, are falling. Before long we will be in the midst of Christmas Bird Count season with the Lakewood (west side) Christmas Bird Count, sponsored by Western Cuyahoga Audubon, taking place on Saturday, December 30, 2017.