Start Your 2025 Bird List!  

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

This has been a popular field trip for several years now, when weather permits. We will bird the most productive spots around Prescott, starting at a sensible 9 AM. We try to be done by noon, but some of us continue into the afternoon if the birding is good. (Bring your lunch.) Limit 8. To register and for details, contact Jan1@PrescottAudubon.org .

Election of PAS Board Members

At the November Window on Nature members will be offered the opportunity to cast a vote for or against the current officers. The slate of officers includes Jo Glaves, Interim President; Sandy Klinikowski, Treasurer; Julie Cargill, Secretary; Mary Ellen Sandeen and Elaine Grings, Directors. 

Membership Renewal Reminder

Sometimes we forget routine tasks. Please renew your PAS membership. We need you! Contact Jo Glaves if you have a question about your membership at pjglaves@swbell.net.

Volunteers Welcome

There is a place for everyone who wishes to become more involved in Prescott Audubon. You can join a committee (field trip, scholarship, communication, education). If you are a party person, come help plan and execute annual social events. PAS would like to host an April social event and input would be gladly

received. Our PAS Board could use additional members. We are a friendly group and work as a team. Join with Prescott Audubon so we can continue to advocate for habitat and birds for the future. Send an email to contact@prescottaudubon.org to express interest in any area.

In September, Friends of the Verde River hosted this year’s State of the Verde River Conference at Cliff Castle Casino. This year's theme was Conservation through Partnerships. This well-attended event gave us many opportunities to learn from one another and to be inspired. Attendees included individuals from municipalities, state and federal agencies, tribes, SRP, NGOs, and private individuals. Many communities in the Verde River watershed are implementing green infrastructure projects to help capture and infiltrate stormwater runoff that can then offset water that would be used on city landscapes. Prescott has identified 25 sites for such green infrastructure projects, one of them being at the Prescott dog park. 

Bruce Babbitt, former US Secretary of the Interior and former Governor of Arizona, gave the opening keynote address. He told the history of Orme Dam on the lower Verde River during the 1970’s which was proposed as part of negotiations over the Central Arizona Project (CAP) which would bring Colorado River water to central Arizona. Orme Dam was not approved because it would have meant resettling members of the Fort McDowell Indian Community. Included in the CAP renegotiation was mitigation money that was earmarked for the Verde River Greenway. With plans now underway to raise Bartlett Dam by 100 feet, he said this might be an opportunity to tie future needed mitigation to the passage of the Upper Verde River Wild and Scenic River legislation. 

We learned that Prescott National Forest through the Land and Water Conservation Fund finalized in September the purchase of 3700 acres from the owner of Yavapai Ranch. A map of the Big Chino Valley shows that in many areas, every other square mile (640 acres or a section) of private land alternates with sections of Prescott National Forest lands. This checkerboard pattern is a legacy from the late 1800’s when railroads were granted every other section along a railroad corridor as an incentive to build track. Managing these checkerboarded lands has always presented land management challenges.  

Willing partners are the key to this exchange process. Landowners propose a sale or exchange, PNF reviews and submits it to the Regional Forester who then ranks all applications for final submission to the Washington Office. There are additional sections that are being appraised for subsequent purchase in the next three funding cycles. 

These formerly private sections of land on the east side of the ranch are in the Big Chino Valley and now allow PNF to manage the forest in a more integrated manner. 

Many other great ongoing conservation partnerships are happening!  

Submitted by Edessa Carr



Prescott’s General Plan 2025

Don’t miss your chance to provide input on the city of Prescott’s 2025 Draft General Plan. This plan is updated every 10 years. The comment period will end on November 21. Of particular interest to nature enthusiasts are the sections labeled Connectivity, Wildlife, and the Dark Sky, Glare, and Lighting sections. There is no mention of protection for wildlife in the Connectivity section. There is no reference to the needs of migrating birds in the Dark Sky, Glare and Lighting section. You can find the 2025 Draft General Plan with a page for comments at this link: https://planprescott.com/. It is particularly enlightening to view other comments.