This year, 2025, marks the 20th anniversary of Seven Capes Bird Alliance, Oregon’s youngest Audubon chapter. We are incredibly proud of all that we’ve accomplished over the last two decades while staying true to our roots as a dedicated group of birders who care deeply for the land we call home. As we prepare for our 20th anniversary celebration, we’ve reflected on our history and what’s changed–and what’s stayed the same.

2007 Audubon Society of Lincoln City members. Front row L-R: Janice Redford, charter board member; Gretchen Ammerman (current editor of Oregon Coast Today); Kathleen Nickerson, founding member; Jack Doyle, founding member. Top row, far left: Mark Elliott, fi eld guide until 2024. Fourth from left: Bill Hall, Lincoln County Commissioner; Peggy Hawker, charter board member; Lori Hollingsworth, founding member; Allison Robinson; Laura Doyle; Dick Demerest, fi eld guide until 2015.

In 2005, a small group of volunteers founded Oregon’s first new Audubon chapter in 22 years, outlining our mission and focus areas of education, conservation, and community science. In the following summer of 2006, this mission and commitment to our focus areas were highlighted in the first edition of our newsletter, The Kingfisher, which our members still enjoy biannually. As a fledgling organization, the best way to foster community interest in birding and wildlife was obvious–get folks outside. Our monthly bird walks, a pillar of our programs that continues to be a touchstone for community engagement, began that same year.

Our first in-school education program began in 2008 when we introduced “Audubon Adventures” to classrooms at Oceanlake and Taft elementary schools. We stretched further into our service area and expanded our education efforts to classrooms in Tillamook, Newport, Toledo, and Siletz in 2011 and began our first adult education program at Oregon Coast Community College in 2012.

From the beginning, our education volunteers have been a driving force behind our outreach and community-building capacity. With their dedication, we continue to explore new ways to collaborate with educators in Lincoln and Tillamook counties. In 2025, we’ve had the chance to pilot new programs in Tillamook and are looking forward to announcing upcoming new educational opportunities in south Lincoln County. After all, building an appreciation for the natural world is the first step in creating the desire to protect it!

Where education plants the seed for understanding wildlife and their habitats, community science offers the opportunity to get directly involved. In 2013, we participated in National Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count for the first time, and we took part in our first Great Backyard Bird Count in 2014. Both counts have become an annual tradition for volunteers to participate in community science.

We’ve even developed our very own community science project inspired by our 2019 “Our Neighbor the Osprey” education program and members’ informal observation of local Osprey nests. In 2023, we formalized these observations by launching our Osprey Watch program as part of our Osprey Awareness Initiative. Now, for three seasons, enthusiastic volunteers have tracked local nests as part of a greater effort to bring attention to the Ospreys that grace our communities every summer. This July, we launched our first annual Lincoln City Osprey Day!

At the heart of our programs is the drive to foster community care for the wildlife and habitats that surround us. From our founding, conservation advocacy has been a key component of the organization, and in 2017 and 2018, the Board of Directors decided to begin prioritizing these efforts with unprecedented energy. In 2020, we took on our greatest conservation challenge so far by proposing Marine Conservation Areas at Cape Lookout and Cape Foulweather Complex. Three years and many meetings later, the Department of Land Conservation and Development approved these proposals in 2023, solidifying our reputation for leadership, effectiveness, and collaboration.

The growth that we have seen over the last 20 years has required and produced significant changes: we are now supported by four staff members, increased membership, and major grant funding. Our name has changed to better reflect our service area and values, and our efforts are more evenly distributed across our priority areas. Even so, we remain a volunteer-led organization that relies on our membership dues. We are still Oregon’s youngest Audubon chapter, and our commitment to the National Audubon Society remains. For us, this exercise in reflection has revealed that our founding mission is stronger than ever: to encourage residents and visitors to protect and enjoy the native birds, other wildlife, and habitats found on Oregon’s coast through conservation, education, and community science!

With many thanks to our volunteers, members, and donors, we look forward to the next decade of working together for birds and nature.

Looking Back at 20 Years of Seven Capes

Celebrate Lincoln City Osprey Day!