[cobirds] Announcements / Update from CFO

Dear Colorado birders:

I recently received my copy of Colorado Birds with a cover photo of a gorgeous male Rufous Hummingbird taken by John Rawinski! This will be the final issue of the journal edited by Christy Payne, and I wanted to extend my gratitude to her for all of her hard work! You may not know it, but just a few months after she agreed to edit Colorado Birds in early 2018, Christy and her husband moved to Michigan, where Christy has family, and in 2019 she gave birth to their son. It's a tribute to her commitment to CFO that she was able to continue producing the journal in the midst of so much change! The summer issue includes information about the new Colorado Parks and Wildlife rules for accessing State Wildlife Areas, a report from the CBRC, two articles dealing with American Kestrel behavior and an insightful report from Scott Yanco on his research into Flammulated Owl movements!

Christy will be succeeded by Peter Burke, who will take over as Managing Editor of the journal. In this new role that he proposed to the CFO board of directors earlier this year, Peter will recruit and lead an editorial team to produce the journal beginning with the Fall 2020 issue. The board supports this new approach, and we believe it will help to ensure that CFO continues to produce one of the best regional birding journals in the country.

This news was first announced at the CFO annual meeting, which due to the ongoing pandemic, was conducted virtually on July 25 using Zoom. For those of you who missed the meeting, some other shifts in CFO leadership were announced. Diana Beatty has agreed to step into the position of CFO Secretary, and Alison Hilf will join the CFO board as a Director. In addition, Megan Jones Patterson, who had been serving in a non-voting role as Volunteer Coordinator, has been elevated to Director, and Joe Kipper has joined the board as Youth Ambassador.

Quarterly CFO field trips remain on hold due to Covid-19, however, we will host quarterly Zoom meetings instead. The next scheduled meetings will be:

• Saturday 7 pm September 19 - Birding is Best in the Right Weather with Bryan Guarente
• Saturday 7 pm December 5 - Colorado Christmas Bird Counts

Nick Komar, Fort Collins

CFO President