Speaking at the St.Louis Audubon Society Annual Dinner, 011114
I was quite thrilled to be invited to speak (with a few photographs and videos) on the topic of “My experiences with birding in St.Louis” at the St. Louis Audubon Society (SLAS)which jcompletes 100 years of existence in 2015.
You can visit their website
Here’s
the Executive Director, addressing the gathering:
who, along with her husband, Dale, I found very impressive indeed, was the master of ceremonies. Here are Jean and Dale with Anjana:
There was a silent auction, with many goodies available.
My good friend
had donated this wonderful photograph of a Belted Kingfisher:
Several people, including
of
did a lot of hard work to organize the evening:
Several initiatives understaken by the Society were highlighted:
Three of us were asked to be “storytellers”;
I enjoyed
talk on SLAS’ role in nature education:
Chris Kirmaier spoke about “Bring Conservation Home”, the initiative that Mitch started.
I was the third speaker, and I just told the story of the experience I’ve had with birding in St.Louis.
My final slide featured
an incredibly knowledgeable birder, who has also been amazingly helpful to me, and to many others. (Imagine. She’s 70, and she drove over from Columbia, Mo, about 2.5 hours’ drive, to take me birding, and gave me her old edition of the Nat Geo book on American birds, a HUGE treasure for me, and on the November bird walk I met Dane Foxwell to whom she’d given another edition, too!…. Now I am going to take either the Sibley or this book back to India with me.)
I felt very honoured to have been given this opportunity, and whenever I visit St. Louis, I will join as many SLAS outings as I can…as also the first Saturday outings that they organize with Forest Park Forever.
Heartfelt thanks to Anjana, who worked on my photographs, improved the flow of the talk, and provided dynamic tech support while I talked, synchronizing the photos to what I was saying!