LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Redbud Audubon Society is using the proceeds of a grant to continue its study of grebes on Clear Lake.

Redbud Audubon received an Audubon in Action Grant from the National Audubon Society in 2024. 

The grant was used to purchase drones, batteries and four pairs of binoculars to begin the process of a Western and Clark’s Grebe monitoring project, which includes a collaboration between high school students, teachers, Pacific Union College, administrators from Upper Lake High School and Lower Lake High Schools, and tribal environmental groups.

Pacific Union College adjunct professor Dr. Scott Butterfield, Pacific Union’s Dr. Floyd Hayes and associate professor, Aime Wyrick-Brownsworth and project coordinator Donna Mackiewicz, president of Redbud Audubon Society are spear-heading the monitoring project.

The plan is for the next five years to develop and test drone and AI-based methods to monitor grebes and the health of Clear Lake with the goal to develop a sustainable monitoring and research program that lives within Lake County's high schools and tribal environmental group curriculums.

High school and tribal students will work with Dr. Butterfield and Pacific Union students from project design to data collection and analysis to publication, exploring all parts of the scientific process as part of this project.

Recently Dr. Butterfield and Mackiewicz engaged more than 250 students in classroom presentations culminating in a field trip with Robert Keen's Upper Lake High School science students to the reclamation ponds and Rodman Slough, one of the 37 colony sites and a stronghold for grebes at Clear Lake. 

Students learned about the differences between Western and Clark's grebes, about their mating behaviors — including rushing, when grebes run on top of the water to impress potential mates — and the efforts of PUC and Audubon scientists to protect and grow the grebe populations at Clear Lake. 

The project plans to launch into classrooms and on to the lake next year if funding is available.

“The students are excited, and we are looking at many avenues: before and after clubs, in-school clubs, Civic volunteer hours and classroom curriculum meeting standards,” said Mackiewicz.