ernest BON] BU GE TiN g 
[HE SOCIETY’S 73rd ANNUAL MEETING: 
Watching Birds, Films, People, and Experts 
Daylight to Dusk at SIU 
The Edwardsville campus of Southern Illinois University was the setting 
May 1 through 3 for the 73rd annual meeting of the Illinois Audubon 
society, with three downstate chapters—Southwest, Kaskaskia and Ridg- 
way—doing the hosting and handling administrative chores. J. W. Galbreath 
acted as general chairman. 
The convention began at daylight Friday for some early birders who 
spent the morning in the blinds at the prairie chicken refuge in Bogota 
watching the spring booming performance. The regular proceeding began 
friday evening with a brief report from John Franson, midwest represen- 
ative of the National Audubon Society. John, now a resident of Owensboro, 
Kentucky, began a career in conservation when he served on the staff of 
azaylord Nelson when he was governor of Wisconsin. The entire state of 
linois now falls into John’s district, since the northern part of the state 
10 longer is in Ed Brigham’s territory. 
Gordon Ruser of the Southwest Chapter showed a series of slides on 
orairie flowers which he has photographed throughout the state. Many of 
ise pictures were taken at Goose Lake Prairie. The evening program closed 
with the showing of three films—‘‘A Prairie Should Be Forever,” produced 
oy Charles Schwartz of the Missouri Department of Conservation, with 
superb footage on the prairie chicken’s booming dance; ‘The Last Great 
Stand,” narrated by the well-known bird painter, Ray Harm, telling about 
he Corkscrew Swamp in Florida, and “Wild Wings,” about the remarkable 
waterfowl refuge in England and the research program and migration 
studies carried on by the British biologists. 
Following a morning bird walk, the Saturday program opened with 
oresentation of charters to the three new IAS chapters in southern Illinois. 
[These are: Kaskaskia Chapter in the Centralia-Salem area; the Southern 
llinois Chapter, with headquarters in the Carbondale area, and the Ft. 
Chartres Chapter in the Sparta-Chester area. 
Speakers during the morning session were Lt. Gov. Paul Simon and 
Prof. Alfred Kahn of S.I.U., who spoke on establishment of a new con- 
servation organization in the greater St. Louis area, the Coalition for the 
“nvironment. This group is made up of individuals and organizations 
nterested in the quality of environment; it serves not only to inform the 
Jublic and act as a forum for ideas, but also to take definite action on 
ocal events which affect the environment. 
An interesting talk on the distribution of the European Tree sparrow 
was presented by Sarah Vasse of Brussels. The talk was especially appro- 
Wiate, since this year marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the intro- 
luction of this sparrow to St. Louis. The distribution of the bird still 
‘emains fairly local although it is spreading into some of the areas north 
1 Madison County, Illinois. Mrs. Vasse invited IAS members to send her 
‘ecords of sightings. 
Luncheon speaker was Dan Malkovich, acting director of the state 
