Peregrine Falcon - Photo: Bob Boekelheide

(Interim) President’s Notes

June 2025

by Matt McCoy

My parents had a deep respect and appreciation of nature. Summer-long camping trips in our home-made camper were one of the ways they tried to instill those values in their children. As blissfully unaware kids in the 1960s, we just thought it was great fun to explore new areas, hike, fish, make rafts, and listen to ranger talks. We traveled around the west visiting all forms of public lands.

One of our trips brought us around the Olympic Peninsula. Somewhere on the east side we found a “sick” cormorant (likely a double-crested, which mom probably identified using our extensive Peterson field guide library) and nursed it back to health with smelt or other fish we caught or bought. After two or three days of living with a fish-eating bird in a small, enclosed space we happily parted ways on the Port Angeles waterfront. We were also active members of the Sierra Club, attending monthly meetings, mom serving on the board, and attending group camping trips in the California desert.

These experiences, large and small, infused me with the desire to work in the great outdoors. After studying fisheries and wildlife biology and spending summers working Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service seasonal jobs in Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, and California (including fighting a wildfire in the Olympic National Park!), I finally landed in southwest Idaho chasing the elusive bighorn sheep.

My new neighbors quickly determined that my life watching charismatic megafauna and making the world safe for cows would be less than fulfilling. As active Auduboners, they helped me see that joining the cool kids (taking me to an annual banquet) would give my life meaning. That simple act dramatically changed my life. BLM’s multiple use mandate does not always put sustainability and conservation at the forefront, but Audubon work would provide an outlet for those tendencies.

The local Audubon chapter was willing to take me under their wing even though I had, at best, questionable bird identification skills (that burrowing owl on a fence was really a mourning dove, that unusual song was a cowbird, that large sparrow a female blackbird?). I quickly learned that Audubon was bigger than birding, and embraced the diversity of friendships, experiences, and opportunities it provided.

After 35 years of field trips, banquets, Christmas bird counts, and conservation projects, we decided to migrate west. While my wife Kathy and I miss our Boise friends, we look forward to continuing the Audubon experience with our new neighbors and enjoying the OPAS chapter of my journey.