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From the Yellowhammer, April 2000 edition:

Winter 2000 AOS meeting at Navarre, FL, was definitely a meeting of challenges. The weather services were predicting snow, sleet and freezing rain and predicting it practically all over the state. Nonetheless, 80 hardy (or foolhardy) AOS members showed up for a weekend of birding the frozen tundra of NW Florida.

The facilities at the Holiday Inn – The Tropics were very comfortable and it was terrific to have a hospitality room to meet, greet and find out what was going on where. Pat Johnson and Larry Gardella had everything organized and registration went smoothly. Those of us already there on Thursday evening were concerned that anyone else would be able to travel. The weather cooperated and almost everyone who had registered was able to make the meeting.

Friday’s meeting was brief with announcements and only Greg Harber’s excellent slides and commentary. The usual "potluck" has truly become part of the AOS tradition and we missed it!

Peggy Baker worked hard to set up field trips and had excellent materials available with maps and details on rarities in the area. Trip leaders worked tirelessly to be sure that all got looks at target birds, sometimes staying out all day. Birding on Saturday was cold, windy and unexpectedly good. Birds were not abundant, but were there. A Saturday morning field trip led by Phil Tetlow and Lenny Fenimore to Eglin turned up only one Burrowing Owl at the last burrow to be visited. Everyone on the trip had a good look as the owl looked at us, then hurriedly ran to a small mound nearby, hunkered down and all but disappeared. The same trip on Sunday morning turned up four burrowing owls. Saturday afternoon Bill Bremser tenaciously led a group on a sparrow stomp that yielded many Sedge Wrens, at least 5 LeConte’s and (finally) one Grasshopper Sparrow.

Bob and Lucy Duncan’s group located the Ash-Throated Flycatcher and most were able to see White Crowned Sparrows. Some lucky birders saw 10 species of sparrows in one day. A visit to the spray fields turned up the Vermilion Flycatcher, Krider’s Red-tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle, Purple Martins, a few shorebirds and more sparrows, warblers and ducks. High winds kept the numbers of birds seen at Ft. Pickens and Navarre Flats rather low. Cheers to Merilu Rose and Ed Case for braving the elements and showing those of us unfamiliar with the area where the "good spots" are.

A rather remarkable flight of approximately 60 Northern Gannets wheeled, dove and floated within easy binocular range of the resort most of the weekend. Snowy Plovers played hide n’ seek with birders just up the beach from the hotel, and a lucky few saw Short Eared Owls in the same area.

Guest speaker Dr. Bob Russell presented an interesting program on the on-going study of Trans-Gulf Migration from oil platforms located off the Gulf coast from Alabama to Texas. It once again demonstrated the importance of our South Alabama Coastline to migrants both inward and outward bound. In fact, South Alabama has the largest outbound migration of some species, easily visible with the help of Nexrad.

Sunday morning once again found our intrepid leaders "up and at ‘em" and the compilation totaled 120 species. Not as many as we could have hoped for, but more than we could have expected for a very cold, damp weekend. Lots of good companionship, good birds, and an excellent meeting to start off the new millennium. Thanks to all who helped make it such a good start to the year.