NCIOS - North Central Illinois Ornithological Society

Today I got a message from Brian Leaf of Severson Dells which explained an unfortunate accident that occurred to Mary Kay Rubey, an excellent wildlife photographer from right here in Rockford.

Her message:

"I'm selling my spotting scope to pay some unexpected medical bills. It's a Swarovski AT 80 HD with 20x-60x zoom angled eye-piece. If you know anyone who is interested, please let me know."

Not wanting to post her phone number, you can call Brian Leaf at Severson Dells if you are interested and he can relay the information. His number: (815) 335-2915.

The scope with eyepiece retails new for around $2,830. Swarovski is a top-of-the-line optic company and it is terrible for Mary Kay Rubey to have been injured.

- Eddie

Wednesday at about two o'clock the kitelet was still present in the top of a tree in the schoolyard. It was fed a cicada and a praying mantis by one of the adults while I watched. I stopped in the school and talked to the front office staff. I offered to prepare a display panel on the kites with some photos, a range map and a couple of paragraphs about MKs in general and these MKs in particular. The staff thought that was a great idea. I'm going to put it together and it will go in the library which all students visit once a week. Never let a "teachable moment" slip by!

This upcoming birding season looks to be jam-packed with superb field trips and informative meetings. Check out the newly updated calendar of events now ! I have also sent the updates to IOS to list on their website.

Don't miss a single one event!!

- Eddie Callaway, NCIOS webmaster

If your photos are on your computer and not hosted on another website

Step One: Make sure your photos are resized to a width of 500px (or less). This keeps the space size (MB) down and also fits well on most computers' browsers. To do this use any photo-editing software and resize the image. [Height can be whatever size, keeping the correct aspect ratio.]

Step Two: Inside where you write a post there is an upload section. Click the "choose file" button and a window opens that lets you browse your computer's files to find your photo. Select that file.

Step Three: Give the photo a title and description (if desired) and then pick "upload". It should upload as long as the file is not overly huge (which is why we resize it first)

Step Four: A new set of options appear where you can place the photo into your post. Select the radio buttons for "full size", link to "none" and pick send to editor button.

Step Five: Your photo should appear:

Note: To move the placement of the photo in the post, select all the text within the "<" and ">" including the little brackets. It will say img src=the file name and then an end bracket. This is code that tells the web browser to display the photo.

I will be upgrading the blog soon to make this process even easier and more straightforward and will repost instructions then.

Any questions, just ask!!

Hello birders!! I just wanted to make a few quick notes about the blog:

Currently there are 16 members signed up to post.

To post, just click the "login" link on the right and enter your username and password (both case sensitive). If you are not a member yet (or forgot your info) please contact me at birdfreak@birdfreak.com. If you are already logged in it will give you the option of "site admin" or "logout". You can click "site admin" and that puts you in to the "dashboard" where you can post. (Actual administrative duties are not available).

Once you are signed in you can post by picking Write Post or selecting "Write" from the menu bar. Just give your post a title and start writing!! When you are done with a post, pick Publish. You can always log back in and edit your post if you wish!

To create a link in your post select the text you wish to be linked and select "link". A new window pops up where you can enter the URL (web address). Pick OK and it creates some code that makes it a link.

To make words bold or italics, select the text and click "b" for bold or "i" for italic . The code will add a 'tag' that says "strong" for bold or "em" for italics.

You don't have to have a user name to post comments but to post sightings you do.

If you want to learn how to post images to the blog, send me an email: birdfreak@birdfreak.com and I will try to explain it the best I can.

- Eddie Callaway (NCIOS blog Administrator)

Per the homeowners request, the last day to come and view the Green-breasted Mango outside of Beloit, Wisconsin will be Wednesday, October 3rd. These wonderful people have been so gracious to open their yards and be part of birding history. This has been wonderful for the birding community!

A while back I was contacted by the Illinois Ornithological Society (IOS) to help them construct an events calendar for our area. I submitted our entire birding events calendar and they now have a statewide calendar of events up on their Website. It lists Chicago Area, Northwestern Illinois, and Southern Illinois calendars. For Northwestern Illinois, our club has the only events listed. These are the same events listed on the NCIOS Website's calendar of events .

Hopefully this will give our bird club and birding area a little more exposure.

Link: IOS Birding Calendar

- Eddie

The meeting and field trip schedule has been updated. If there are any additions, changes, or errors, please email Eddie . Also, if you know of "target" birds for any of the field trips, please let Eddie know so he can add them to help promote the field trips.

Information about the Crane Count in April and the Spring Bird Count in May have been added to the website - www.ncios.org/birding.html .

As always, if there are any corrections, additions, or suggestions, please contact Eddie Callaway at birdfreak@birdfreak.com.

This is a reminder/update about the upcoming Earth Day happenings at Rock Valley College. NCIOS will be running a booth to talk about the birds in our area, conservation of bird habitat, and about our birding club. Currently there are only two members who are signed up to manage the booth - Jennifer Outcalt and myself. We would really like one or two (or more) people to come help us out. The event runs from 12:00 noon to 4:00 PM. If you could make it for any part of this time that would be great.

Full info:

Where: Rock Valley College, P.E. Center (PEC)
When: 12-4 PM on Saturday, April 21st
Details: We will have a booth with the club name and various materials. We are scheduled to have electricity and internet access so can hopefully display the blog/website and other birding materials. We are planning on having pencils, bookmarks and club info to pass out.

If you wish to join us, please call Jennie or me at 815-226-1051 or my cell 815-323-0011 ASAP. This is a great tool to reach potential new members and increase our ranks of birders and conservationists!

Here is a flyer that was sent to us: