In this monthly feature, our members and friends have been invited to reflect on and celebrate Travis Audubon’s 70 years.

The first bird I remember seeing was when I was about 9 years old. It was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that my father pointed out to me in our front yard on Tower Drive in Austin. He seemed fascinated by it, so of course I felt fascinated also. From then, as I explored our neighborhood and the local park, I noticed birds.

Fast forward some twenty years, as I just happened to be looking out the large back windows of my house, I heard a loud thud and saw something drop from the window. I went outside and saw a bird on the ground, seemingly stunned but with no obvious injuries. It was the strangest bird I had ever seen, and I really had no idea what it was. I felt like I had found a treasure. Thankfully I was eventually put in contact with Suzanne Maven of the wildlife rehab group in Austin, who then put me in touch with the ‘bird people’ of Travis Audubon and folks at the Natural Science Center. I was astonished to find out the bird was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. It lived, but could not fly, and so I kept it and took care of it for years. That bird changed my life.

My lucky charm bird, Connie Cuckoo as she was named, caused me to buy bird books and binoculars and led me to lobby the Austin City Council to buy Steck Valley as a park instead of putting a road through it, which the Council agreed to do. That bird led me to become part of an amazing group of nature-loving people who are still lifelong friends. Several of them are founding board members of my own foundation which is dedicated to bird and nature conservation in Ecuador.

Jane Lyons with the President of Uruguay, Alberto Lacalle, and the US Ambassador, Thomas Dodd, in Montevideo, 1992.

In 1979 I began working at the Natural Science Center as their raptor specialist and went on to become the Wildlife Coordinator, Director, and construction manager for the new Austin Nature Center. During those same years as an active TAS member, I documented bird records, conducted annual Christmas Bird Counts from a canoe on the Colorado River and elsewhere in Travis County, served on the TAS Board, and was editor of Signal Smoke for 8 years. I led many birding trips for TAS and for the Nature Center, from Texas and Mexico to Central and South America. From there I went to work for National Audubon Society as coordinator for Texas and Latin America. We all worked hard together to help pass the Clean Air Act, the Wetlands Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act. I was a member of the Balcones Habitat Conservation Plan Committee and studied and banded Black-capped Vireos. As part of my job for National Audubon, I went to Mexico to search for the Golden-cheeked Warbler (GCWA) in Chiapas. I wrote the official petition for the listing of the GCWA as an Endangered Species and was Co-Founder of Texas Partners in Flight. I eventually got a PhD from UT Austin in bird conservation in Latin America with field work in Venezuela and Argentina/Uruguay.

In 1998 I bought a small farm in Ecuador and established Reserva Las Gralarias which has grown to some 1500 acres of protected cloud forest habitat in the mid-elevation Andes. This is where I now live. All of this is because of Connie Cuckoo, with of course much help from Auduboners, and many other bird and nature enthusiasts across the world. I have had visitors to my private reserve from 40 countries. These are people who come to Ecuador and to my reserve just to see birds. There is a fraternity of folks worldwide that love birds enough to spend their lives and money protecting them, studying them, photographing them, watching them, and TAS has been a major part of that group for many decades.

How lucky we all are!
By Jane A. Lyons

Travis Audubon former Board member and founder of Reserva Las Gralarias.

Students and visitors to Ecuador