Brynne+Audubon+Society

In December, I went to an Audubon Society meeting for my action plan. After electing new board members and having a short business meeting, Brian O'Shea, a museum employee, gave a presentation on the local Prairie Ridge area. He gave a brief introduction of Prairie Ridge, then presented the information he compiled over years displaying the patterns of birds. O'Shea gave information on new bird species present in the are, cardinal migration patterns, as well as dips in the appearances of certain species of birds. He also supplemented his research with graphs and data. O'Shea wants to continue counted the birds he sees to learn more about bird migration patterns. He knows that the information he catalogs can help us learn more about birds, and can be applied to different fields of science.

This Audubon meeting can be applied to APES in many ways. Birds are the prime example of an indicator species, so a change in migration patterns can indicate a change in disease outbreak, pollution, species competition or climate change. Therefore, Brian O'Shea's data can be used to show these changes in the environment. His work can be used to implement a change to fix these problems should they occur.

