President's Message: January 2025

Tampa Audubon President Ann Paul

It’s winter! We can tell because the White Pelicans are here, and the ducks, mergansers, and Common Loons are on the bay. Christmas Bird Counts are underway, and holiday decorations festoon our neighbors, stores and homes. It’s nice that the weather is a bit cooler too.

Everywhere are the messages - “Happy Holidays,” “Merry Christmas,” “Seasons’ Greetings,” and “Peace on Earth.” Key thoughts of the season are love for our family members and friends. That brings me to thoughts about being part of an organization like the Tampa Audubon Society.

We get together to benefit habitats for birds and wildlife, using education and outreach. We learn about birds and the special places in Florida where they live by sharing time in the field on trips around our area and further afield, by attending meetings with expert speakers and by reading and expanding our knowledge with reports by other birders and ornithologists. We share our own knowledge too.

We are a group of people who care about our Florida heritage for good reasons, including our love and appreciation of birds, but also because we recognize that places that can’t support birds and wildlife are not healthy for people either. We do this because we love our children and grandchildren, and we want them to be able to experience Florida as we have. Not one reduced by greed, carelessness and ignorance

With love for each other, empathy for others, and appreciation for birds and wildlife, we are an active Audubon society. Tampa Audubon Society, our Florida, and our America grow better through caring about the things that matter - clean air and water, open spaces that nurture not just wildlife, but our hearts, and each other as fellow citizens working to raise our families and improve our lives. When we treat each other as we wish to be treated, when we manage our resources as we want our children and the future to inherit them, when we appreciate our region as the unique portion of a vast world worthy of its conservation, we do our job as Americans and Auduboners. Because no country was ever made great through hatred.