ORAS is excited to announce the opening of the Spring 2020 Conservation Grant application cycle! If you are conducting research or completing a project with an emphasis on bird conservation, habitat improvement, or environmental education, we encourage you to apply for the grant. Preference will be given to projects located within the Athens-Clarke County area, but considerations will also be given to other locations in Georgia and surrounding states. Application deadline is March 15th, 2020. Please visit our Conservation Grants page (http://oconeeriversaudubon.org/grant) for more information about the grant and application process. 

Please join us for our monthly meeting at 7 p.m., Thursday, February 6th at Sandy Creek Nature Center where Gary Crider, Northeast Georgia Invasive Plant Cooperative member, will discuss the most insidious invasive plants in the Georgia Piedmont and what you can do to help native birds. See below for details.

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.