Friends of Shades Creek

Friends of Shades Creek October Meeting
Thursday, October 14, at 7:00
Via Zoom Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81542675368?pwd=NHNQbTB2TVA1YWZlT1B2Y2tYeXVYQT09

Presentation with David Butler: Cahaba Riverkeeper

David Butler first was a volunteer for Cahaba Riverkeeper, then became a board member, then went to law school and today serves full time as the official Riverkeeper and staff attorney. David’s commitment to the Cahaba inspired him to return to school earning a law degree from the Birmingham School of Law in order to navigate the many legal and bureaucratic issues facing the organization in its advocacy for a healthy river. Shades Creek is the largest tributary of the Cahaba River and 60% of the Birmingham area's drinking water comes from the Cahaba River. Cahaba Riverkeeper maintains a "swim guide" that monitors for water quality. They monitor some sites on Shades Creek.

Cahaba Riverkeeper was founded in 2009 to defend the ecological integrity of the Cahaba River and its watershed, to ensure clean water and a healthy aquatic environment, and to preserve the recreational and aesthetic values of the river basin. Cahaba Riverkeeper is dedicated to the scientific study of the Cahaba and its tributaries and to keep the public informed about the information we discover.
Please join us tonight at 7:00!

Alabama Salamanders with Jimmy Stiles and guest Lauren Muncher

This Thursday, February 11, Jimmy Stiles will join us for our February meeting. The Zoom meeting will go from 7:00 p.m. to 8:15. Get your salamander questions ready for him!
Zoom link is below:

Jimmy recorded a Salamander Festival video that you can find at our festival website: shadescreek.org (or you can find it directly here: https://youtu.be/bmlVVI5h1qg

This Thursday, he will speak more in-depth about salamanders and will answer your toughest questions (or try). Jimmy is working on his Ph.D. at Auburn University in Forestry and Wildlife Sciences.

The Salamander Festival goes through the month of February - check it out on our website: shadescreek.org
Also: Take a self-guided, interactive hike at Homewood Forest Preserve,1925 South Lakeshore Drive. It's a .7 mile hike. [See Attached Map]
Follow the Salamander Festival Signs for specially curated content while you hike.

Michelle Blackwood is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Friends of Shades Creek - Salamanders with Jimmy Stiles - Feb. 11
Time: Feb 11, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
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Alabama Salamanders with Jimmy Stiles and guest Lauren Muncher Jimmy Stiles is a PH.D. candidate at Auburn University in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences. Guest, Lauren Muncher is the Park Naturalist at Oak M...

Welcome to the 17th Annual Salamander Festival.

Salamander Festival 2021 is running now through February 28!

It’s all about beautiful Shades Creek, the largest tributary of the Cahaba River, our state treasure, and their connection by the Alabama River to the Mobile Tennsaw Delta, our national treasure, the Gulf of Mexico and the oceans of the world. Virtual this year and of course free, the Salamander Festival provides an opportunity to experience – as many times as you like – Alabama’s natural river-based environment, quite literally unique in all the world and so much in need of appreciation and protection. This year, restricted in our travel, the emphasis of the festival is on understanding our local connection to the global environment and to all of humanity.

This year’s Salamander Festival includes many of the displays, activities and events of our last 17 in-person festivals. You’ll see “real” salamanders - featuring our festival icon, the spotted salamander - explained by university professors. You’ll learn “in the field” from experts and authors about the plants, animals and habitats of salamanders and the larger environment that we share with them. You’ll find a wide selection of educational videos on current topics of river conservation, organic gardening and environmental horticulture. A special feature this year is a series of new videos on Low Impact Development (LID) near the Cahaba River, produced by Homewood’s Richard Banks.

You’ll create your own fish and turtles with colored paper and Japanese ink fish prints, demonstrated by creative members of Friends of Shades Creek, or print off salamander pages to color yourself. You’ll be inspired by the artwork of local school children and fascinated by the history and folklore of Shades and Cahaba Valleys. As always, we feature professional storytellers taking you to the magical realm of what can be - if you only stop to listen more carefully to the natural environment and to the salamanders.

In place of our guided nature hike, this year we have a non-virtual self-guided do-it-yourself interactive hike at Homewood Forest Preserve (1925 South Lakeshore Drive, see attached map). Follow the Salamander Festival Signs for specially curated content while you hike. If you like, you can use your smart-phone to access fascinating information at each stop to expand your knowledge of nature.

We plan to be back in-person in 2022 for our 18th Salamander Festival, when we hope to see you again in person! For now, use the link below to listen to our Salamander Festival 2021 Welcome!
https://youtu.be/vMQmpsPVEUo
Then check out more information, videos, and activities at shadescreek.org

Welcome to the 17th Annual Salamander Festival. This is a brief introduction to the Salamander Festival with a list of details about the festival this year. The festival begins on January 30, 2021 and will...

Maybe tomorrow take our self-guided Salamander Festival Hike at Homewood Forest Preserve. Its informative and interactive and will be available for the next week. Follow the signs and bring your phone!

The 17th Annual Salamander Festival begins tomorrow, Saturday, January 30!

It's in a virtual format this year! Check out all the fun at shadescreek.org

Tonight via Zoom: 7:00 CT P.M. with Friends of Shades Creek

Saving America's Amazon
By Ben Raines

Praise for: Saving America's Amazon:

The Threat to America's Most Biodiverse River System by Ben Raines In this eloquent book about one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on earth, Ben Raines writes with a compelling urgency that is both justifiable and heartfelt, reminding us that the quality of human life is inseparable from the ecological health of a place.
— Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea

What a fine volume on one of America's great overlooked treasures—and now we need to make sure it is preserved intact, in a world that needs all the biodiversity it can find.
— Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

Native Alabamian Ben Raines’s love of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and Mobile Bay jump out from every page of this portrait of one of the nation’s richest estuaries. From deep in the swamps to the Gulf beaches, this book shines a spotlight on Alabama’s rich natural world. For too long, those riches have been overlooked due to public perception of Alabama and her history. Saving America’s Amazon shakes off that old way of thinking and invites America to meet the real Alabama.
— Winston Groom

Friends of Shades Creek is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Friends of Shades Creek, January Meeting – Saving America’s Amazon

Time: Jan 14, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
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Saving America's Amazon

1.Salamander Month: Spotted Salamanders spend most of their entire lives in underground burrows or under logs. On the first warm rainy night after it has been cold, they leave their earthen homes to make a run to wetland vernal pools. Vernal pools dry up during the summer, so fish, which are predators of salamanders, won’t be living in these pools and are a good place for salamanders to lay eggs. Some of our Homewood salamanders need to cross the road to get to a vernal pool on the north side of South Lakeshore Drive. Salamanders return to pools where they were first born, just like salmon. This week our temperatures are cold. On the next warm rainy night (45-50 degrees and up), we will be watching for Spotted Salamanders. To learn more about salamanders, mark your calendars for Saturday, January 30th. That’s the date of the 2021 Virtual Salamander Festival. More details to come this month.

2.Friends of Shades Creek, January meeting takes place this Thursday, January 14 at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom. Our speaker for this month is Ben Raines, author of the book: Saving America’s Amazon. (http://www.newsouthbooks.com/bkpgs/detailtitle.php?isbn_solid=1588383385).

Friends of Shades Creek is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Friends of Shades Creek, January Meeting – Saving America’s Amazon
Time: Jan 14, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83379172195?pwd=cVBZa2FwN2VhM1lNVSs0Y29kaFgvQT09
Meeting ID: 833 7917 2195
Passcode: 922258
One tap mobile
+19292056099,,83379172195#,,,,*922258# US (New York)
+13017158592,,83379172195#,,,,*922258# US (Washington D.C)
Dial by your location
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+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Meeting ID: 833 7917 2195
Passcode: 922258
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kd59NCeLAt

Saving America's Amazon Though almost no one knows it, the most diverse forests and aquatic systems in the nation lie in Alabama. Described as America’s Amazon, Alabama has more species per square mile than any other state. Its rivers are home to more species of fish, crayfish, salamanders, mussels, snails and turtles tha...

Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

Our December meeting usually includes a holiday party and an interesting program. This year, because of Covid, we won’t be able to have the party, but will have the interesting program with the help of Zoom. Our program, tonight, will kick off with our own ED, Henry Hughes, speaking about our area’s many beautiful and local native trees. Henry has been collecting seed from our native trees for years and replanting areas with seedlings he has grown at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. This is helping to preserve our forests. Henry will talk about how and why this is important, along with methods and success stories. Next, Amber Kustos, Sustainability Coordinator at Samford University and board member of Friends of Shades Creek, will speak about organizing and recruiting student volunteers for tree planting and the success of recent projects. Then Amy Milam, resident caretaker of Sims Garden in Homewood and board member of Friends of Shades Creek, will speak about Homewood’s Canopy Assessment and Tree Inventory project. She will explain what this project is and reasons to conduct a tree/forest assessment.
We hope you can join us tonight for this informative and special program.

Join Zoom Meeting - 7:00
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Meeting ID: 846 6295 8734
Passcode: 604817

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcdGmkphna

Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, confer...

Accomplishments – Friends of Shades Creek | Birmingham, Alabama

Giving Tuesday is today, December 1. This simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good has grown over the past seven years into a global movement that inspires millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. Giving can be helping a neighbor or stranger or donating to favorite charities. Every act of generosity counts. We hope you will take time tomorrow or this week to help someone or some charity in some way.

If you wish to donate and join Friends of Shades Creek and the work we do to educate, promote and protect clean water resources along beautiful Shades Creek through cleanups, outings, educational meetings and messages, and the Salamander Festival, you may do so directly through our website at: shadescreek.org

A list of some of our accomplishments and activities can be found here: https://shadescreek.org/conservation-accomplishments/.

Also, if you're looking for a unique gift idea, the book, “Shades Creek flowing through time” is still available: https://shadescreek.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BookPressRelease-1pg.pdf.

Accomplishments – Friends of Shades Creek | Birmingham, Alabama Our mission is to promote the rich history of Shades Creek, to protect its aesthetic and ecological integrity, and to advocate responsible planning in the communities through which it runs. Shades Creek is important to the water quality of the Cahaba River, Alabama’s natural wonder, and, by extens...

Saving Alabama’s ancient forests one acorn at a time

Did you know? Friends of Shades Creek board member Henry Hughes is a trailblazer in forest restoration! Learn more about his efforts here: https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2020/11/saving-alabamas-ancient-forests-one-acorn-at-a-time.html

Saving Alabama’s ancient forests one acorn at a time The Centennial Tree Program has planted more than 5,000 native trees in the Birmingham area to make sure native forest species live on for future generations.

The Friends of Shades Creek November meeting will take place this Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:00 via Zoom (link below).

Dr. Jim Brown and Birgit Kibelka (contributors to the Shades Creek book) will be presenting our program called: Archy Culvert, a.k.a. Ross Bridge: Discovery, Rediscovery, Documentation & Construction.

The presentation highlights history and preservation of the Ross Bridge Culvert (Bridge) in Hoover. It's a fascinating story going back to the Civil War era. Both Jim and Birgit have researched this landmark extensively, located near Shades Creek in Hoover.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 835 1280 8112
Passcode: 766851