After dedicating 20 years to Sedona Charter School as an administrator until she retired in 2020, following a previous career in corporate communications, Alice Madar took over the International Hummingbird Society from Beth Kingsley Hawkins when Hawkins retired on Sept. 1.
Hawkins’ late husband, H. Ross Hawkins, Ph.D., [1939-2020] founded the IHS in 1996 and was a monthly author of the “Your Hummingbird Connection” column in the Sedona Red Rock News, with Beth Hawkins providing photos of hummingbirds.
“It’s an exciting conservation organization to be involved in,” Madar said. “It’s based right here in Sedona. I talk with people involved in hummingbirds and hummingbird research all over the country and South America.”
“Even though the Hummingbird Festival occurs right before school starts, and it was during staff preparation week, I would always tell everybody, ‘Friday before school starts, I’m taking a day off, I’m going to the hummingbird Festival,’” Madar said.
Madar has attended every Sedona Hummingbird Festival since 2015. Before her first festival, she didn’t know much about hummingbirds. However, she said that after attending a banding event where she was able to hold and release a hummingbird and feel its heartbeat, and experiencing the Hummingbird Breakfast surrounded by numerous hummingbirds, she was captivated.
“What amazed me so much was feeling its heartbeat, because it was like a little toy motor and I will never forget that,” Madar said. “It was so amazing to be able to hold that wild bird in my hand for a second and feel its heart beating and watch it head off into space.”
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Madar, her husband Ivan and their three-year-old son Boris headed off to Sedona in 1994.
“We were somewhat conflicted because we did love San Francisco,” Madar said. “But we felt if we didn’t move, we would always wonder, what would have been. We’ve been happy here. I love all the hiking trails that are so close … and the people that I’ve met through Sedona Charter School and through my dog training and through being on the board of the Northern Arizona Audubon [Society].”
“I’ve always had a strong interest in wildlife conservation, and so to be able to lead a conservation organization that’s based right here in Sedona was just a fantastic opportunity,” Madar said. “When I interviewed for the position I said, ‘Now that I’m retired, this is the only job I will take in Sedona.’ I was fully prepared to take this on because during those three years, I went to South America a few times to photograph hummingbirds. I got very involved with Northern Arizona Audubon, learning all about the local birds.”
Madar plans to spend January in Chile and Argentina photographing hummingbirds after three previous trips to Peru and Ecuador that she spent doing the same.
The society’s former marketing director, Hilary Joy Morejon, is now leading the society’s new hummingbird banding project at Page Springs Fish Hatchery in Cornville. The project is a collaborative effort supported by Arizona Fish and Game, Hummingbird Monitoring Network, the International Hummingbird Society, and Northern Arizona Audubon. Hummingbirds in the area, predominantly black-chinned will be banded to study their population and behavior throughout the year.
The banding season at Page Springs Fish Hatchery will normally take place from April through October, but the start of the project this year has been delayed several months as IHS waits to receive the required permits.
“Every two weeks, hummingbird banding will take place at this location for five hours a day,” the society’s grant request to NAAS stated. “This will be a long-term banding site and there will be no end date due to data collection, research, public outreach, education, conservation efforts and volunteer opportunities. There are currently no hummingbird banders in the Verde Valley, and this is a great opportunity to establish such a venture.”
“I’m still helping manage the festival, which is our busy time,” Morejon said. “But we’re excited to get this project started because it’ll be so fulfilling to expand on that research for months instead of just the three days at the festival. We’re hoping to open doors for different insights into hummingbirds and seeing different hybrids that might happen in this area that we don’t know about.”
IHS is also starting a certified hummingbird garden program to make their gardens more pollinator-friendly.
“We think this is a great way to help with hummingbird conservation in North America, because
the populations of all birds are declining, especially the rufous hummingbird, which comes through here in Sedona,” Madar said. “They can visit our website, which is HummingbirdSociety.org and we will have a page set up for that.”
