The Oconee Rivers Audubon Society (ORAS) recently received the National Audubon Society's Plants for Birds Burke Grant. With this funding, ORAS will be able to build a high-profile demonstration garden to showcase the importance of native plants to bird conservation while also creating habitat for other wildlife within the Athens community.

Plase join us for the first monthly meeting of 2020 where Clay Delancey, a Research Coordinator at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at UGA, will discuss conservation of Cerulean Warblers. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, January 9th, at Sandy Creek Nature Center. Please see below for details. 

Student’s from the new Lilly Branch Audubon Society campus chapter will discuss the formation of the chapter at UGA and other topics in ornithology when the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society holds its next meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, December 5th, at Sandy Creek Nature Center.

Local historian, Steven Scurry will discuss Georgia’s first real-estate market, the 10 year war it triggered, and how all that changed the environmental face of the South at our next meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, November 7th, at Sandy Creek Nature Center. Please see below for details

Botanist and mushroom researcher, Jean Lodge will describe her research on the ancestry, ecology and importance of the mysterious waxcap mushroom during our next meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, October 3rd, at Sandy Creek Nature Center.

The Oconee Rivers Audubon Society will hold its upcoming monthly meeting on Thursday, September 5th, at UGA's Odum School of Ecology's Auditorium. The meeting will start with a reception with light refreshments and silent auction fundraiser at 6:30pm. The featured speaker, Dr. Joe Wunderle, will begin his presentation at 7:00pm. See below for more information.

Please join us for a potluck picnic on Thursday, June 6th at 6pm at Memorial Park in Athens! This will be our last meeting before the fall kickoff meeting in September. The picnic will be located at the shelter on the hill in the park. Officer election for 2019-2020 will also take place at the picnic. Hope to see you there!

Author and Executive Director of the Georgia ForestWatch, Jess Riddle, will discuss lessons learned from documenting old-growth forests in North Georgia during ORAS monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 2nd, at Sandy Creek Nature Center.

Please join us for our monthly meeting where Lauren Muller from the Northeast Georgia Invasive Plant Cooperative will discuss her experience working with invasive plants and share tips on controlling invasive species in our community. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4th, at Sandy Creek Nature Center. See below for details.

Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) are an important game species throughout their range. Recently, declines in productivity have been reported throughout the Southeast, which is believed to be related to reduced reproductive success via reductions in nest and brood success. These declines warrant research on aspects of female reproductive ecology, such as movement, survival, and habitat selection.