Virtual General Meeting Rich Cimino Topic: Birds of the Western Andes Mountains of Colombia Register for Fresno Audubon General Meeting Nov. 12th, 7:00pm This meeting will be broadcast online via Zoom Register to receive login information. New to Zoom? Check out all you need to...
Register for Fresno Audubon General Meeting December 13th, 7:00pm
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Title: Robert Groos, Wild Turkeys, up close and personal
Description: Wild Turkeys, up close and personal
Wild Turkeys roam the foothills of Coarsegold. In early spring, an annual pageant unfolds: traveling leks of hopeful males seeking to mate with willing females. It is a wondrous exposition of biological desire, and much more. I’ve had the good fortune to observe and capture it all with photos and video. In this presentation, you will witness the phenomena of Wild Turkey leks, courtship displays, male to male combat, copulation, predation upon nests, and more.
Don’t be a turkey and miss out on this opportunity to experience the thrill of seeing these magnificent birds at their wild best.
Biography:
Robert received a PhD in French from the University of Wisconsin, became a university professor, but eventually left academia to pursue a career in computer technology consulting.
He began photographing birds in preparation for a safari in Botswana. What better way to learn how to use a camera than photographing birds, he reasoned. Birds eventually became his favorite photographic subject. “I’ve never met a bird I didn’t want to photograph,” he admits.
His photograph of a Cedar Waxwing was selected to appear in a special Audubon Photography Awards gallery of “our favorite female bird shots 2021.”
Choosing to be a bird photographer necessitated becoming an avid birder, and that pursuit led to storytelling about his experiences observing birds.
Register for Fresno Audubon General Meeting January 10th, 7:00pm
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Julie Brown
Monitoring migratory raptors in the Americas
Description:
I will be speaking about the Hawk Migration Association of North America, our current programs and the work we do to support the raptor migration monitoring network. I’ll talk about HawkCount.org, the largest citizen science database in the world and how these data are being used to determine raptor population trends across the continent.
Biography:
Julie Brown is the Raptor Migration and Programs Director at HMANA since 2008. Prior to her work at HMANA, she migrated throughout the US and tropics working as field biologist primarily with raptors, focusing on human impact studies, migration research and behavioral studies. Julie received her BS in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Maine and received her MS in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England where she studied Peregrine Falcon migration in Costa Rica. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband who she met hawkwatching and her two bird loving children.
Register for Fresno Audubon General Meeting February 14th, 7:00pm
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Larry Parmeter
How the Birds Taught Humanity to Fly
Description:
Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have wanted to fly like the birds. Although many studied the secret of avian flight during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, it was not until the Industrial Revolution that the technological tools for humanity to fly became available. By the mid and late 1800s, spurred on by the science of bird flight, dozens of people, and the Wright Brothers were not the first, were attempting to master human flight. This culminated in the early 20th century with pioneering aviators on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Pacific as well, joining the birds in the air.
Biography:
Larry is a retired high school English teacher who currently teaches for the Osher Adult Continuing Education Program at Fresno State. He has been a member of Fresno Audubon for over 30 years, and was its president during the 1990s. He currently leads field trips for both Audubon and the San Joaquin River Parkway, and is also involved in the Parkway’s environmental education program for elementary school students. He has also had a longtime interest in the space program and aviation, which led him to tonight’s presentation.
Join Robert Groos on safari to Zambia. No need to fly all the way to the other side of the world. On this photo and video expedition, you will experience the birds and other wildlife (lions, leopards, elephants, zebra, antelope, of course) of Zambia as if you were sitting by my side in the safari jeep. Enjoy an incredible travel experience, informative as well as entertaining, without leaving the comfort of your own home.
Come along with me. I want you by my side on March 14, 2023
Biography
Robert received a PhD in French from the University of Wisconsin, became a university professor, but eventually left academia to pursue a career in computer technology consulting.
He began photographing birds in preparation for a safari in Botswana. What better way to learn how to use a camera than photographing birds, he reasoned. Birds eventually became his favorite photographic subject. “I’ve never met a bird I didn’t want to photograph,” he admits.
His photograph of a Cedar Waxwing was selected to appear in a special Audubon Photography Awards gallery of “our favorite female bird shots 2021.”
Choosing to be a bird photographer necessitated becoming an avid birder, and that pursuit led to storytelling about his experiences observing birds.
Harmonizing Bird Conservation with Food Production in Farming Landscapes
Register for Fresno Audubon General Meeting April 11th, 7:00pm
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Daniel S Karp: Harmonizing Bird Conservation with Food Production in Farming Landscapes
Description:
A critical challenge for this century is transitioning towards sustainable farming systems that simultaneously produce food and conserve wildlife. Yet conservation scientists and practitioners have traditionally fixated on protected areas and overlooked opportunities for conserving wildlife alongside us in working landscapes. Daniel uses ecological research to develop strategies for co-managing agriculture for bird conservation, crop production, and food-safety outcomes, both in the tropics and here in California. For this talk, Daniel will first discuss how climate change and habitat conversion are affecting tropical bird communities, and how shifts in farming practices may mitigate their combined impacts. Then, Daniel will shift his focus to California agricultural systems, where birds play multiple roles on farms, not only consuming crops and spreading foodborne diseases, but also consuming crop pests. Daniel will outline his lab’s work striving to find ways to manage California birds and take advantage of the benefits they can provide farmers, while minimizing harms to food production.
Biography:
Daniel Karp is an associate professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. Daniel completed his Ph.D. in 2013 and undergraduate studies in 2009 at Stanford University’s Department of Biology. Following his graduate studies, Daniel became an inaugural NatureNet postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and the Nature Conservancy. He then received a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct research at The University of British Colombia, before beginning his position at UC Davis in 2017.
Register for Fresno Audubon General Meeting May 9th, 7:00pm
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Tom Hahn, University of California, Davis: Natural History of Western Finches
Description:
Finches are, in many respects, the archetype of what people think of when they hear the word “bird.” Yet concealed in that “typical bird” form lies amazing variation. Among our numerous western finches – goldfinches, siskins, crossbills, grosbeaks, and so forth – we have: birds that are about as likely to breed in January when the snow lies deep on the ground as they are in July, birds that perfectly match the calls of their mates, birds that pack their songs with precise imitations of the sounds of other species, birds that seldom breed in the same place two years running, birds that we can only tell apart reliably by their flight calls, birds that can breed “in the streaked plumage of youth,” birds who can nest far from their food sources because they possess hefty food-transport pouches, and birds whose mandible tips don’t even line up. This presentation will be a tour of the striking natural history, behavior, morphology, and physiology of our western finches, and highlight ways that field ornithologists and bird watchers can add to our growing knowledge about these fascinating birds.
Bio:
Tom Hahn is a professor of biology at the University of California, Davis. He has been studying western Cardueline finches since the late 1980s, when he began working on reproductive schedules of red crossbills for his doctoral research. Since then, he and his students have spent many hours in the field studying the reproductive schedules, migratory habits, vocal behavior, habitat associations and other aspects of the natural history of red crossbills, white-winged crossbills, evening grosbeaks, pine siskins, house finches, Cassin’s finches, purple finches, American goldfinches, lesser goldfinches, pine grosbeaks, common redpolls and gray-crowned rosy-finches.
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Sept 12, 2023
Speaker: Rob Furrow
Title: Flight Calls to Monitor Nocturnal Migration in the Central Valley
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Description:
Most songbird migration happens while we’re sleeping, with warblers, sparrows, and other birds passing overhead during their nocturnal flights. These migrating birds are not entirely silent during the night; many species repeatedly make short calls as they fly, referred to as nocturnal flight calls. In this presentation Rob will outline the basics of how bird migration can be monitored using audio recordings of nocturnal flight calls. Then he will describe initial results from a pilot study of nocturnal flight calls in the Central Valley, conducted with UC Davis undergraduate Cameron Tescher, as well as more recent work recording sight-verified flight calls of western migrants at ridge migration sites. Throughout, the audience will learn about when and where they might be able to hear these flight calls, and how to identify a few of the most common calls.
Speaker Bio:
Rob Furrow is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. He has been birding since his youth and revels in early mornings with migrating songbirds. Nocturnal flight calls have long been an interest of his, so he was thrilled to take on these projects working alongside curious and dedicated UC Davis undergraduates.
