Center Activities and Updates- September 2016
Give the gift of membership this Fall season
Center Memberships begin at $50 for a household and offer a variety of benefits, including: discounts on paid program fees, access to recurring programs for adults and families, regular installments of Montana Audubon Center news and announcements via email, and much more! Do you know someone who loves birds, wildlife, and/or the outdoors? Consider giving a Center Membership as a gift to a neighbor, recent graduate, or special someone. Great things are happening at our operation in Billings, and we invite you to be a part of it. Purchasing a Center Membership is secure and easy online: JOIN TODAY!
Fall programs are underway
49 fourth-grade classrooms are currently enrolled in the Center’s flagship program, Audubon Naturalists in the Schools (ANTS). This record-breaking participating represents an increase of more than 40% over the previous school year. Between September and May, students in the ANTS program will receive multiple in-classrooms visits from Montana Audubon Center teachers, as well as a series of field trips. A revised and updated ANTS curriculum includes stronger emphasis on native plants and bird life of south-central Montana.
To learn more about ANTS and other place-base nature education offerings at the Center, including after school and home school programs, please visit the website: Montana Audubon Center.
Autumn is awesome for waterfowl!
The 55-acre Center grounds is a re-vegetated, former gravel mine, featuring three ponds: Deep Mill, Shallow Mill, and Will’s Marsh. These ponds, located less than a mile from the Yellowstone River, offer critical migratory stopover and wintering habitat for waterfowl. Over a dozen species of these web-footed wonders have visited the ponds during the past year. A few of the Center staff’s waterfowl favorites include: Eared Grebe, Hooded Merganser, and Northern Shoveler. To learn more about the birds that visit the Montana Audubon Center–and to contribute your own bird sightings–check out our hotspot page on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird website.