Hey everyone! My name is Dominic D'Amico and I'm a recent graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I've been working with Dr. Annie-Laurie Blair and the Fernald Community Alliance since the winter to help plan out the construction of a public bird blind at Fernald Preserve outside of Ross, Ohio. For those of you that have never heard of the story of Fernald, it's quite fascinating. In short, the site was once a uranium processing plant for US nuclear arms during the Cold War, and as a result, the land was once extremely polluted, but cleanup efforts in the past few decades have turned the land into a sprawling nature preserve. It's a story of environmental triumph that hold extreme importance where issues of conservation often seem quite bleak. Fernald, as I'm sure many of you know, is an excellent place to go birding and a public bird blind could only help enhance that reputation even more. It would be an excellent opportunity for school groups to learn about the myriad of interesting species and get a chance to see some they perhaps hadn't before. Rather than go through the process of grant proposals, we've decided to use a more modern technique in the form of www.kickstarter.com, a website that hosts projects that anyone and everyone could donate to. For those of you weary about the legitimacy of the site, have no fear: kickstarter is a reputable and secure site lauded by major institutions such as Time Magazine and the New York Times. For more details on how the site works, visit: http://www.kickstarter.com/hello?ref=nav I won't bog you all down with any more details for now as our project page is still being put together, but I'm just giving you guys a heads up for anyone interested! For any questions or feedback, my contact info is listed below, as well as Fernald's facebook page - we could use some more likes! Thanks! Dominic D'Amico B.A. in Zoology/Environmental Science - Miami University Cleveland, OH [log in to unmask] https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fernald-Community-Alliance/206721086011954 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]