The Fall 2025 Arkansas Audubon Society convention will be held on October 24-26, 2025, at Hilton Garden Inn in Conway. Get ready for outstanding speakers and field trips! Field trips will include great birding destinations with amazing guides, a banding observation opportunity, a native plant opportunity on Friday, and a beginner-friendly option on Saturday. On Sunday, three location options are offered, with one being ideal for folks returning home along I-40 West.
At Hilton Garden Inn, our room block includes King and Double rooms. The cutoff date for our reserved block of rooms is September 26, but don’t procrastinate! To reserve your room at our group rate of $110, click here or call (501) 329-1444.
Register for the convention here by October 3 to qualify for Early Bird registration rates: $25 for AAS members and $30 for non-members. Student registration is $15. Save money by registering early! Register by 10/17 to guarantee meals for the meeting.
On Friday night Spencer Daniels, Black Bear Program Coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, will speak about Black Bears in Arkansas. He will cover their history in Arkansas, the biology of black bears, and black bear research and management in Arkansas. He will also touch on the topic of mountain lions in Arkansas.
Saturday afternoon's symposium will feature student research reports and a National Audubon Society guest speaker.
On Saturday evening, our featured speaker will be Dr. Todd Green, presenting on The Curious Crowned Cassowaries: Living Dinosaurs with an Attitude. Todd employs advanced scientific methods, including micro-CT imaging, geometric morphometric shape analysis, and gross dissection, in addition to conducting fieldwork with live specimens, to establish an anatomical baseline for understanding the biological functions of the cassowary casque. His research has provided valuable insights into cassowary biology and clarified the possible roles of their cranial ornaments. Such findings are crucial for meaningful comparisons between the modern cassowary’s casque and the ornaments found in extinct, non-avian dinosaurs. Enhancing our knowledge of the origin and evolution of such headgear contributes significantly to the study of ecomorphology and developmental patterning throughout evolutionary history.
Field Trip Coordinator Patty McLean has done a fabulous job putting together interesting field trips for us, with 12 guided field trips over three days. These include a beginning birder trip, a tour of a native plant garden geared to bird-friendliness, and several trips highlighting nearby hotspots. Please take time to look at the options that Patty has planned, and you’ll find it hard to choose!
Last but not least, we will once again hold our silent auction. It's not too early to be thinking about items to donate! Please bring new/like new items to be donated for sale. Used items, including books, can be offered on our “Free Table.”
We hope you can join us for an entertaining and educational weekend of birding, learning and gathering with friends! Contact Cheryl Johnson with any questions at cjbluebird@comcast.net.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
Spencer Daniels accepted the position of Black Bear Program Coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) in February of this year. Before joining AGFC, Spencer attended Mississippi State University where he studied black bear reproduction and ecology for his master’s thesis and received his undergraduate degree in Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science. Spencer is a husband, a father of two, and a United States Marine who served on active duty from 2014 to 2019. Spencer was born and raised in Mississippi but now considers Arkansas home and is very excited to play a role in bear conservation in the state formerly nicknamed The Bear State.
Dr. Todd L. Green is an Assistant Professor of Anatomy at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University where he investigates comparative and functional anatomy of extinct and extant archosaurs, a group that includes avian dinosaurs (birds), non-avian dinosaurs, crocodylians, and pterosaurs. Green’s research focuses particularly on the group of birds known as palaeognaths, which include tinamous, moas, elephant birds, ostriches, rheas, kiwis, emus, and cassowaries. To better interpret the biological roles of anatomical structures in the fossil record, he studies modern analogs from ontogenetic, ecological, and evolutionary perspectives. In addition to his scholastic activities, Dr. Green is a director of the Long Island South Shore Audubon Society, and a scientific consultant for various scientific education projects (e.g., The Cassowary Kid: Life with Living Dinosaurs, Hope for the Wild: Cassowaries, and Dinosaur Empire).