Meet Cassidy Mueller!  PAS provided the scholarship/stipend to help Cassidy attend the Arizona Field Ornithologists (AZFO) Annual Meeting this past September.  We are certain that, after your read Cassidy's essay, you too might be interested in attending the next AZFO Annual Meeting.  Learn more at AZFO.org .

AZFO Student Scholarship Recipient Essay 2026

 I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the AZFO Annual Conference this year. It was truly an experience that I will never forget. I would also like to thank Tice Supplee, Karen LaFrance, and Adam Stein for encouraging me to apply for this scholarship and attend the conference, and the Prescott Audubon Society for sponsoring my scholarship. I would also like to thank everyone who made the conference possible, from the venue to all the volunteers and members of AZFO. Putting on and organizing an entire conference is a lot of work - so truly thank you for all you guys do! My experience at the conference started Friday night at the social, which was my first time at the Pinewood Country Club where the conference was hosted. I walked into the room not really knowing what to expect or who I was going to see, only to come across fellow friends, classmates, students, and AZ Game & Fish employees that I had met over the summer all being there. It was great to catch up with everyone and hear about the adventures that had happened earlier in the day, and different projects going on in the bird world. The next day, Saturday September 19th, started off on a great note. Well, that’s after I finally made it to the Kachina Wetlands Preserve at 6:30 in the morning after Google Maps sent me on a thrilling adventure into a gated community. The group ended up being 4 of us, with Harry Jones as our lead. We then set off into the wetlands to see what cool birds awaited us inside. The best part of this entire conference happened that morning in the wetlands: I got to see a bird I’ve been wanting to see for a long time….the Belted Kingfisher! It flew right in front of me as we were looking out at a big pond, right over the reeds and off into the rest of the preserve. It was amazing and by far my favorite bird of the conference! After that morning's birding activity, I headed back to the country club for the start of the meeting. I perused the silent auction and book tables, and then found a fellow friend and classmate who was there and sat down with them. The rest of the conference that day consisted of a bunch of fascinating presentations. I especially enjoyed the ones about West Nile Virus, extra-limited breeding, and Song Sparrow subspecies. It was very interesting getting to see different projects people were working on in the ornithology field, even if they weren’t ornithologists but interested in something that overlapped with birds. I learned a great deal about what it takes to put on these projects, and just some cool facts about birds. At the end of the presentations and business session of the meeting, we did a Sound ID quiz. It was very tricky, and I am impressed to say that I managed to actually get one of them right! Our keynote speaker spoke after dinner on an interesting topic: a bird scat study. It was more interesting than I first thought, and the speaker, Jeff Foster, was lively and funny. I was fascinated that you can figure out what species something is just by looking at a certain DNA sequence that all animals have. The Sunday expedition I went on was also an amazing experience. David Stejskal was our lead, and I was with a bigger group of people this time. We went on a car-birding experience - my first one - and went to some lakes and overlooks around the Flagstaff area. The highlight of that trip was definitely getting to see a lot of raptors (one of my favorite groups of birds!). I got to see a lot of Osprey diving and attempting to catch fish in a lake, see a Cooper’s Hawk fight a Raven in the sky, and even a Merlin and a Peregrine Falcon. I definitely didn’t expect to see either of those species! Overall, I had a wonderful time at the 2026 AZFO Conference and look forward to learning even more about birds as my journey continues. Happy Birding!

Cassidy Mueller McDowell
College of Global Futures, ASU