Announcements
The announcements for the March chapter meeting are linked. Click on the link to bring the announcements to your computer. The links should open in a new window or tab so you will still have this message open in the original window in your browser.

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Stalin’s Presentation on Photographic Techniques
Stalin’s presentation was excellent and we had an overflow audience to take it all in. I was going to include some of his slides from the presentation here, but the presentation was more than just the images. His explanations of how to compose, capture, and connect gave a road map to succeeding in taking photos. Stanlin’s focus on how to shoot wildlife was also excellent.

We will encourage him to present at the Texas Master Naturalist Annual Conference in October. We love to share our successes with the other chapters in the state.

We learned Stalin’s technique for a panorama shot on a smartphone. Start with your hips square to the scene that you are planning to shoot and aim straight ahead. Then its all in the hips. Swing to the left and start the panorama at the left edge and then move from the hips slowly to the right to capture the scene. Stop at the right edge of the scene and you’ve got it. Make certain to keep the arrow on the guide line so it will stitch together and look like one scene.

New Photography Chairman Announced
Carroll Mayhew has been taking photos of NTMN events since 2007 and has chaired the committee for that last several years. As chair, he has collected, organized, and made the photos taken by the members of the NTMN photography committee available to the newsletter, website, social media sites, and any other project that needed photos of wildlife are NTMN in action. We thank  Carroll for his contribution and organization of our photographic record.

Carroll announced last evening that Stalin will be the new chair of the photographic committee. Thanks to Carroll for managing this great NTMN treasure and to Stalin for carrying it forward.

In Memoriam 
Ruth Maaske passed away this week. She had maintained the DFW Wildlife Coalition, a volunteer-operated hotline which assists callers with wildlife questions and concerns 7 days a week, 7 AM-10 PM, providing one-on-one education about native Texas wildlife and making referrals to wildlife rehabilitators as needed.

Ruth and I had been in email communication in the last week because she wanted an announcement made at the chapter meeting to try to recruit more volunteers to help her with the DFW Wildlife Coalition. Her efforts will be missed and we will do what we can to continue the DFW Wildlife Coalition.

Ruth’s obituary is here.