This was a hybrid meeting. We had a speaker and a live audience in the BEES classroom and the meeting was broadcast on Zoom.
Call to Order: President Barb Bassett
Call to Order: 7:30 PM
Attendees: 18 in-person; 19 on Zoom.
The minutes from the last meeting were approved.
Committee Reports
Membership – Rebecca Reicherter
Two new members have joined since the last meeting: Matt and Anne Kane
Field Trips – Linda Widdop
If you wish to lead a field trip, contact Linda: linda@techimpact.org
Upcoming field trips:
| DATE | TIME | TRIP | LEADER |
| Apr 20 | 7:30 – 9:30 | Higbee Beach WMA | Barb Bassett |
| Apr 20 | 11:00 – 12:00 | Spring Migration at FDR Park | Holger Pflicke |
| Apr 20 | 8:30 – 10:00 | Robbins Park, Upper Dublin | Jason Porter |
| Apr 21 | 8:30 – 10:30 | Pennypack on the Delaware | Holger Pflicke |
| Apr 24 | 7:30 – 9:00 | Wednesday Spring Bird Walks at Lorimer Park and Fox Chase Farm | Linda Widdop |
| Apr 27 | 7:30 – 2:30 | Belleplain State Forest + Cape May NWR | Alan Crawford Win Shafer |
| Apr 27 | 8:00 – 10:00 | Bird Walk at The Discovery Center | Barb Bassett |
| Apr 28 | 8:00 – 10:30 | Poquessing Creek Park | Holger Pflicke |
| May 1 | 7:30 – 9:00 | Wednesday Spring Bird Walks at Lorimer Park and Fox Chase Farm | Linda Widdop |
| May 2 | 7:30 – 9:00 | Independence Hall Spring Bird Walks | George Armistead |
| May 2 | 7:30 – 10:00 | Thursday mornings at Wetherill Park (Montco) | Martin Selzer |
| May 4 | 8:00 – 9:30 | Fernhill Park | Holger Pflicke |
| May 5 | 8:00 – 10:30 | Tacony Creek Park | Holger Pflicke |
| May 8 | 7:30 – 9:00 | Wednesday Spring Bird Walks at Lorimer Park and Fox Chase Farm | Linda Widdop |
| May 9 | 7:30 – 9:00 | Independence Hall Spring Bird Walks | George Armistead |
Conservation – Perri Strawn
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act has been instrumental in obtaining a judicial stay of the plan to develop FDR Park. A hearing is scheduled for May 2nd. Other filings are being prepared to support the cause. Barb Bassett checked for an endangered species list for FDR Park and found none listed.
Billings – Art McMorris
Marty Dellwo stood in for Art McMorris and gave a brief background of the genesis of the Bob Billings Big Year Award. It is given to the birder who sees the most species in the DVOC area in a given year. The award is now 11 years old. He thanked Liz Billings and her daughter, Karen, for attending the ceremony.
This year, the award was presented to Ethan Kang, who reported finding 280 species, 2 of which are new to the Billings list: Sabine’s Gull and Red-flanked Bluetail. Ethan is now the youngest member to ever win the award. He gave a presentation on his Big Year, highlighting some of the species that were key to the achievement as well as acknowledging the help of his parents and many other birders. He has also started a bird club in his high school in Garnet Valley.
Cassinia – Holger Pflicke
No report.
Announcements
Navin reminded everyone that the City Nature Challenge will be held from April 26th through the 29th. It will cover the usual counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Please go out during those dates and log entries into iNaturalist. We are trying to get 1000 participants to post species this year.
For more info: https://cncphilly.org/
Barb mentioned the upcoming Bird Quest being held by Gloucester County Nature Club. The event includes bird walks for everyone, regardless of their participation in Bird Quest. A T-shirt and lunch are included in the cost of participation.
For more info: https://gcnatureclub.org/events/bird-quest-2024/
Linda Widdop reported that the Raven Luna Chicks (an all-women team) will participate again in the World Series of Birding to be held on May 11th. All funds donated to support the team will be contributed to the Bird Safe Philly program.
Local Notes
Linda Rowan reported her year’s first sightings of Barn Swallows in Levittown.
Christian Scheibe saw both a Yellow Warbler and a Common Yellowthroat at Bucktoe Creek Preserve in Kennett Square.
Manny Dominguez reported on a Killdeer nest with four eggs at the Navy Yard. He also noticed an Osprey nest in the same location.
Linda Rowan reported seeing migrating Loons and a collection of five Broad-winged Hawks at Lorimer Park. Ethan Kang saw a large kettle of Broad-winged Hawks at Garnet Valley High School.
Marty Dellwo mentioned a Louisiana Waterthrush at the Heinz NWR.
Barb Bassett saw a Bullock’s Oriole in Cape May.
Finally, there was a report of 626 White Ibises at Carol Avenue on Cape May Point.
Programs: Navin Sasikumar
May 2: Interns and grad students from the Academy will give three short presentations
May 22: Kenn Kaufmann will present, “Center of the Bird World: Audubon and his Rivals in Philadelphia”. The talk, to be held in the Auditorium at 6 PM, is intended to introduce his new book which is being released on May 7th.
More information on the Meetings page of the DVOC website for this and other upcoming meetings.
Evening Program
Troy Bynum gave a talk entitled, “Introduction to Photography: Wildlife Edition”
In this workshop, he went through the various settings to help photography enthusiasts use their cameras in the manual mode.
Adjournment
After the presentation and some questions, the meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.