These are some of our recent presentations given via Zoom. These links are not permanent as we will need to delete older presentations due to space limitations. So enjoy them while you can!
Photographing birds in the field involves many challenges. In this talk, Bill Majoros will describe a number of strategies related to the use of photographic equipment, field techniques, and artistic considerations, as well as some postprocessing tips.
Bill Majoros is an assistant professor of biostatistics at Duke University in the Center for Statistical Genetics. He holds a PhD in computational biology from Duke, and a BS in computer science from Penn State. In the early 2000's he was part of the Human Genome Project that sequenced the DNA of the human genome for the first time in history. Bill has been photographing birds for 17 years. His photos and instructional writings have been published by the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Sierra Club, Popular Photography magazine, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among others. He is the maintainer of several popular birding web sites, including DigitalBirdPhotography.com and MageeMarsh.org. His new e-book, “The Birds of Magee Marsh” has been downloaded many thousands of times since its release two years ago.
Steve Shultz will lead a presentation that explores the birdlife of a spot on many bucket lists, the Galapagos Islands. We will explore how the birds of the Galapagos arrived on the islands, what types can be seen during a visit, discuss how the archipelago is a hotbed of speciation, recall the pioneering works of Darwin and Wallace, and link all of this to birdlife right here in the Carolinas.
Steve has been leading birding trips professionally and on a volunteer basis for more than 15 years. You may have met him on a local, national, or international Carolina Bird Club trip, during the annual Wings Over Water festival in eastern North Carolina, or be familiar with his work as prior editor of the Carolina Bird Club Newsletter and current editor of The Chat, the ornithological journal of the Carolinas.
Kent Fiala's eBird 202 is a talk about eBird for eBirders, going into topics beyond the beginner level on how to use eBird more effectively and make your observations more valuable. Kent is a life-long birder known to many of us through his work as an eBird reviewer through which he has developed a deep knowledge of eBird. He leads bird walks for New Hope Audubon and is also the editor of the Carolina Bird Club website and the New Hope Audubon website. He is the author of several publications.
Michelle Nowlin presented an overview of the legal strategies used to protect bird habitat. She will talk about current examples of advocacy, including ongoing South Carolina litigation which works to protect the habitat of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker.
Michelle Nowlin is the co-director of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. She also serves as chair of the board of advisors for the Duke Campus Farm and as a faculty advisor for the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum. Nowlin has dedicated her career to the protection of natural resources and public health through the practice of environmental law.
In most birds, eggs in a clutch hatch over a period of hours or days rather than simultaneously. Hatching asynchrony, as this phenomenon is known, has implications for family planning, parental favoritism, sibling competition, and epigenetic variation in fitness. Keith Sockman will discuss his nearly two decades of field and laboratory research on hatching asynchrony in Lincoln's sparrows, including his first confirmation of David Lack's more than 70-year-old hypothesis for the cause of hatching asynchrony and for its consequences on offspring growth and future reproduction.
Keith Sockman earned a PhD at Washington State University in Pullman and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University. Since 2004, he has been on the faculty at UNC Chapel Hill, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Biology and where he studies the causes and consequences of reproductive decisions in birds.
David and Judy Smith have been traveling the world birding since the 1980s. Their upcoming trips include southern India and the upper Amazon of Brazil, and if the trips go as scheduled, they will talk to us about their experiences birding one of these exciting locations. Southern India has some of Asia's most magnificent national parks. It is home to more than 20 endemic birds and a variety of mammals. Brazil is home to Rio Japura and Rio Tefe—two of the largest rivers in the Amazon basin, yet few people have heard of them—and even fewer have explored the birds and animals that live along and in these rivers.
David and Judy both worked at GlaxoSmithKline, and after retiring in 2010, they have continued to explore the birds of the world with travels abroad. Their popular presentations for our club have included birding in Costa Rica, Bhutan, Namibia, and New Zealand and Tasmania. They have been active members of the Chapel Hill Bird Club for a number of years with David serving as president for seven years and Judy serving as vice-president.
Jin Bai and Dr. Madhu Katti will talk about the Triangle Bird Count (TriBC), a citizen science project that helps monitor the abundance and diversity of bird species in urban habitats in our area. Dr. Katti serves as the Principal Investigator for TriBC and is an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, while Jin is the project coordinator for TriBC and a PhD student advised by Dr. Katti. Join us to find out what they are learning and how you can help with this year's effort. The Zoom line opens at 7:15 pm, and the meeting begins at 7:30 pm.
Join Alex to hear tales of his four-year adventure traveling and birding in China's most culturally and biologically diverse province. Bordering tropical Southeast Asia to the south, and the frigid Tibetan plateau to the northwest, Yunnan's complex makes it a global biodiversity hotspot. Alex will discuss his varied birding experiences from the green interstices of the urban jungle to remote regions nestled deep in the Eastern Himalayas.
After graduating from Duke with an MA in East Asian Studies in 2015, Alex spent four eventful years working for Middlebury College and CET running global education programs in SW China. He currently holds a day job working as the Assistant Director for Duke's Asian/Pacific Studies Institute.
Murry Burgess will talk about the impact of artificial light on the physical development and metabolic health of Barn Swallow chicks. The impact of sensory pollutants on songbirds is the focus of Murry's research as she pursues her PhD in Wildlife and Conservation Biology at NC State. Murry is an avid birder, an Associate Wildlife Biologist, urban ecologist, environmental educator, author, and an advocate for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
Annually North Carolina offers a rich diversity of birds from the mountains to the sea. During the pandemic and while working from home, Sean and Dawn set a targeted goal to bird in every county across the state. From hotspots to roadside birding, they will share their visual journey across North Carolina.
The couple met in 2015: Sean likes to say they met on a desert island, while Dawn's version is that they met on a ferry going to Cape Lookout Lighthouse. They were married in 2019 at Cape Lookout in the shadow of the lighthouse and have been birding together ever since. Their dreams include new adventures, giving back and paying it forward, spending time with family and friends, and looking through their binoculars to yet add another bird to their life list.
A bird-watching visit to the barrier islands of North Carolina would be incomplete without spotting an American Oystercatcher. With their bright orange-red bill, yellow eyes with red eye rings, black head, and brown and white body, they are striking birds. Their population is in decline, however, and the American Oystercatcher Working Group is assessing the status of Oystercatchers in our state and is studying factors that affect the population.
Lindsay Addison serves on the American Oystercatcher Working Group's Steering Committee and coordinates North Carolina's oystercatcher banding program. She will talk to us about the working group's efforts to learn more about the American Oystercatchers. Lindsay has been Audubon NC's coastal biologist since 2011, and she and her staff are responsible for monitoring about 40% of the waterbirds that nest on North Carolina's coast. Lindsay earned her undergraduate degree at Stetson University and her M.S. at Florida Gulf Coast University, where she studied Least Terns nesting on natural beaches and rooftops. She has worked in birds and conservation since 2005 in Florida, Massachusetts, and California.
Brumley North has become one of Orange County's premier birding destinations. Bo will talk about TLC's land management at Brumley North and the fantastic variety of birds observed at the preserve since its opening to the public in 2017.
Bo Howes is the Director of Land Protection and Stewardship, West at Triangle Land Conservancy. After growing up in Chapel Hill, Bo graduated from Denison University then went on to earn a law degree from North Carolina Central University. Since 2008 Bo has worked in a variety of roles at TLC. Bo is a past president of New Hope Audubon and is currently a board member and Co-chair of the Conservation Committee of the NC Botanical Garden Foundation.
Kent's talk is permanently archived on his YouTube channel