Wake Audubon Birdwatching and Environmental Meetup

Beekeeping in the City - a Science Cafe talk sponsored by the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Thursday, July 25, 2019, 7:00pm - 8:30pm (arrive earlier for a seat and if you want to buy dinner or a drink). The talk is free. Daily Planet Cafe, 11 West Jones Street (next door to the Nature Research Center and Museum of Natural Sciences). Enjoy this brief presentation and discussion about beekeeping in urban environments. In this Science Café, we will learn about this exciting hobby from a practical standpoint. Find out what it takes to get started with bees, but more importantly what it takes to be an ethical, neighborly, and successful urban beekeeper. Urban beekeeping poses several unique challenges that need to be considered and mitigated, but keeping these beneficial insects can also be surprisingly rewarding! "Bee Downtown" is a startup that provides one-of-a-kind employee engagement and leadership development through year round programming at corporate campuses. All of the programming and engagement is facilitated at beehives which are placed and maintained by the Bee Downtown staff on the company’s campus. Bee Downtown currently maintains about 200 hives in the Raleigh/Durham area and Atlanta, Georgia for some of the biggest companies in the world, including Delta, Chick Fil A, SAS, COX Enterprises, Georgia Power, Burt’s Bees, AT&T and many more. ABOUT OUR SPEAKER Ben Dictus is Bee Downtown’s Lead Beekeeper for all of North Carolina. He has a degree in biology from Lawrence University, a masters degree from Bowling Green State University, and is completing a PhD at North Carolina State University in Higher Education Administration. Ben started beekeeping in 2015 while working for Eurofins Agroscience as a member of the beekeeper team, where they performed research on hives with colony counts exceeding 1000. In addition to keeping all of Bee Downtown’s North Carolina hives, he also keeps personal hives. URBAN AGRICULTURE SCIENCE CAFÉS: (past) May 9: The Local Food Movement (past) June 27: From Pears to Paw Paws: How to Grow Fruit in Your Backyard July 25: Beekeeping in the City August 8: Create Your Own Backyard Hen Habitat For more information: Katey Ahmann[masked] [masked] This event is not affiliated with Wake Audubon, but we are happy to advertise it.

Join Wake Audubon for a free birdwalk at the 117-acre E Carroll Joyner Park, on SATURDAY, JULY 27, from 7:30 to about 930 a.m. Leader is Erla Beegle ([masked],[masked]) The address is 701 Harris Road, Wake Forest (one mile east of Capital Boulevard and three miles north of 98/Capital interchange). Turn right (east) on Harris and follow Harris Road for about a half-mile and the park appears on your right. Plan on walking about 2 miles (mostly paved, but a couple of grassy sections) as we explore the park and look for birds and other wildlife. The park is open dawn to dusk. http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/joyner-park.aspx Ebird information on birds sighted at Joyner: http://ebird.org/ebird/hotspot/L1057149 E Carroll Joyner Park, 701 Harris Road, Wake Forest NC (meet in main parking lot) Note: Park has construction going on. A lot of habitat is disappearing. PS Thanks for joining our WAS Meetup. We hope you will help us by joining Wake Audubon Society - a chapter of National Audubon!

Optically Speaking, (Binoculars and Spotting Scopes) Prairie Ridge Ecostation, 1671 Gold Star Dr, Raleigh, NC Saturday, August 3, 2019, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. John Gerwin will cover anatomy, costs, and care of binoculars and spotting scopes. We’ll spend the first couple hours in the Research Lab classroom of Prairie Ridge Ecostation, discussing optics in detail, then move outdoors to try out a dozen or more binoculars at the bird feeders. Please bring any binoculars that you can. We’ll take time to discuss these and compare. Leader: John Gerwin ([masked]). It's summer: Pack cold water and a snack. Restrooms available.

CREATE YOUR OWN BACKYARD HEN HABITAT - a Science Cafe talk sponsored by the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Thursday, August 8, 2019, 7:00pm - 8:30pm (arrive earlier for a seat and if you want to buy dinner or a drink). The talk is free. Daily Planet Cafe, 11 West Jones Street (next door to the Nature Research Center and Museum of Natural Sciences) SCIENCE CAFE: CREATE YOUR OWN BACKYARD HEN HABITAT Thursday, August 08,[masked]:00pm - 8:30pm SCIENCE CAFÉ SERIES — URBAN AGRICULTURE Join us to learn about the art of raising chickens. Owning backyard chickens could easily be in your future! In this Café, you will learn the best ways to easily manage the feeding, watering, cleanup, egg collection and other chicken issues in a way that will allow you to incorporate chickens into your urban lifestyle … even allowing for safely taking two-week vacations (without a chicken-sitter). ABOUT OUR SPEAKER Frank Hyman is an author and DIY carpenter, metalworker and designer. He has had hands-on experience with a variety of both domestic and wild animals and currently focuses on the science of raising of backyard chickens. His writings include the Coop Builder and Chicken Feed Café columns for Chickens magazine. Because of its popularity, his new book, “Hentopia,” is now entering a second printing, having sold out the first 13,000 copies in only a month. URBAN AGRICULTURE SCIENCE CAFÉS: (past) May 9: The Local Food Movement (past) June 27: From Pears to Paw Paws: How to Grow Fruit in Your Backyard (past)July 25: Beekeeping in the City August 8: Create Your Own Backyard Hen Habitat For more information: Katey Ahmann[masked] [masked] This event is not affiliated with Wake Audubon, but we are happy to advertise it.