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2012 CFO ANNUAL CONVENTION

Announcing Colorado Field Ornithologists' 2012 Birding Convention: Have Your Cake and Eat It Too!

CONVENTION BUSINESS

• Download the convention schedule with an area map:
• Click here for an online interactive link to the convention map:
• Find out who is on your convention field trip:
• Get field trip leader information:
• Read the 2012 Convention Brochure:
• Read the Abstracts of the Paper Session:
• Do you have questions regarding online registration?
• Vendors! Register here to display your products at the convention:

** The CFO 2012 Annual Convention Will Be Held in May 17-20, 2012 **

The 2012 Trinidad Convention Online Registration is now Closed

Each year, the CFO board of directors is faced with an interesting challenge. In selecting a location for the annual CFO convention, do we opt for a location with good infrastructure and amenities, plus easy access to well–known birding hotspots? Or do we go for a convention site that's well off the beaten path, offering simpler amenities and less–familiar birding destinations—but with the undeniable lure of discovery and adventure?

Well, this year, we're offering you both types of convention experiences! The 2012 CFO Convention will be held in Trinidad, Las Animas County. Our 2012 convention destination will provide us with great amenities and relaxed birding in and around Trinidad, along with amazing excursions to practically unexplored destinations farther afield. This year, you get the best of both worlds. You get to have your cake and eat it too. Enough with the metaphors. Let's take a look at what's in store for the 2012 CFO Convention.

The tourism infrastructure in Trinidad has been greatly overhauled in the past year or so, and the Trinidad–Las Animas County Chamber of Commerce and The City of Trinidad Tourism Board are really going the extra mile to extend their hospitality to us. A special offering this year will be a free barbecue dinner and kickoff on Thursday evening, compliments of the chamber of commerce and tourism board.
For full convention details, please read the 2012 Convention Brochure.

Field trips! If you want the basic comfort of easy half–day trips, you will be delighted by our excursions to such well–known sites as Lathrop State Park, with its excellent mix of eastern migrants and resident desert species. And don't forget the Trinidad River Walk. Right in town, this scenic stroll should provide excellent viewing of diverse riparian bird species.

And then there are the "adventure" trips. Adventuresome birders will delight in exploring remote and rugged ranches all across Las Animas County. You are guaranteed to see some of the most beautiful country in the United States, and it is likely that these trips will produce some major surprises. Field trips will head out to such destinations as Mesa de Maya, Beatty Canyon Ranch, and the Bar NI Ranch.

In keeping with our theme of imaginative field trips, we will be offering more Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas trips than ever before. Lynn Wickersham, who heads up the breeding bird atlas, is making arrangements for CFO convention attendees to visit some very special sites. Please sign up for one of these trips, and make an important contribution to our understanding of the exciting yet poorly understood breeding bird fauna of south–central Colorado. This is the last season of field work, so this is your last chance to get involved!

Read Saraiya Ruano's
article about
Flammulated Owls
from Birding magazine

Click HERE to open this article.

As always, the CFO convention will feature great speakers and programs! Colorado Birds Editor Nathan Pieplow will again be organizing our scientific paper session, which promises to enlighten us with the latest field ornithological research from Colorado. And, of course, there is our keynote presentation, always a major highlight of the convention. This year, we are delighted to welcome Dr. Brian D. Linkhart, the world's foremost expert on the Flammulated Owl and a biology professor at Colorado College. Please see below for more information on Dr. Linkhart and his presentation.

The 2011 convention in Trinidad promises to be one of our most exciting yet! You'll enjoy great hospitality in Trinidad, and you'll love the field trips and programs we have lined up this year. Catch up with old birding pals, forge new birding friendships, and enjoy a wonderful weekend of birding in one of the most scenic regions of western North America. See you there!

More Info: For full convention details, please read the 2012 Convention Brochure.

About Our Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Brian D. Linkhart is Associate Professor of Biology at Colorado College, where he teaches courses in ornithology, ecology, and field biology, and mentors students in field research during summers. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Linkhart has conducted research on the biology and ecology of various grassland and forest birds across the Southwest. His particular focus has been on the ecology and demography of Flammulated Owls.

Amazingly little is known about these tiny, insectivorous, migratory raptors that breed in mature pine and mixed-conifer forests. How far do they migrate? Where do they winter? Have changes in the climate affected their populations? Dr. Linkhart's keynote address, "Large-scale Secrets of Pint-sized Raptors: Shedding Light on Climate Change Effects and Migration Patterns in Flammulated Owls," will offer some answers—and raise exciting new questions.

The 2012 Trinidad Convention Online Registration is now Closed

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