
Promoting the watching, protecting and enjoying of birds in and around Wimberley, Texas
Next Quarterly Meeting
August 18 ,2025
10:00 – 11:00 am
Wimberley Community Center
Guest speaker: Cindy Luongo Cassidy
“My talk will explore the natural world and the processes that depend on the absence of artificial light. It will emphasize the issues that birds have with artificial lighting. I’ll also include some information on bird-friendly windows. It will cover issues of navigation (& migration), reproduction, circadian rhythms, photoperiodism, competition, predation, and general habitat protection. I’ll also touch on some issues that humans have with artificial light at night too. We’ll review what we can do to extend our protection of birds (and ourselves) to the nighttime.”Cindy Luongo Cassidy is the leader of DarkSky Texas, formerly known as The Texas Chapter of the International Dark-Sky Association, a founding member of several Hill Country night sky groups, and a Hays County Master Naturalist.
She has twenty plus years’ experience as a lighting consultant and dark sky advocate, was the key player in positioning the City of Dripping Springs to receive the prestigious International Dark Sky Community designation, the first in Texas, and has assisted numerous other International Dark Sky Place applications in Texas.
In 2019, Cindy was awarded the Crawford-Hunter Award, the highest honor that the International Dark-Sky Association bestows to individuals who, during their lifetime, have contributed an extraordinary effort to light pollution abatement. Cassidy lives in Driftwood, TX and was the creator and Executive Director of the hugely successful Texas Night Sky Festival®.