This was a hybrid meeting. The in-person portion was in the BEES classroom. Instructions for registration were announced on the website and weekly digest.
Call to Order: President Gregg Gorton
Call to Order: 7:32 PM
Gregg (remote) introduced all the officers and welcomed guests.
Attendees: 37 on Zoom, 12 in person.
The minutes from November 3, 2022 are not up yet but there is a banquet report posted on the website.
Committee Reports
Membership Committee – Nilesh Shah
4 new members in November – Noreen Nicolo, Bud Cook, M McDonald, Susan Matson. One new member application was received today and we have 44 new members for the year to date.
Field Trips – Linda Widdop
Email Linda Widdop, linda@techimpact.org, if interested in leading any field trips.
Upcoming field trips:
- December 3 @ 08:00 am – 10:30 pm – FDR with Robert Karchnyak
- December 3 @ 9:00 am – 10:30 am – Discovery Center with Michael Walter
- December 10 @ 8:00 am – 10:30 am – Poquessing Creek Park with Holger Pflicke
- December 17 @ 7:30 am – Christmas Bird Count at Pennypack Park Environmental Center with Linda Widdop
- December 18 @ 8:30 am – 10:30 am – FDR with Robert Karchnyak
- December 18 @ 9:00 am – 10:30 am – Glen Foerd with Holger Pflicke
Linda also mentioned that she is looking for winter trip leaders to places like Barnegat or to look for winter raptors, for example.
Conservation – Gregg Gorton
Despite ongoing opposition to the project, the city’s Arts Commission gave approval for the architectural features of the Cobbs Creek golf course renovation.
Billings – Art McMorris
Go Birding! The Billings award is given each year to the DVOC member who observes the most birds for the year in the Billings area. You have to be a member at the beginning of the year to compete in that particular year. The deadline to submit the 2022 checklist is the last day of January 2023.
Nominating Committee – Art McMorris
The nominating committee composed of Anita Guris, Patrick McGill, George Armistead, Linda Timlin, and Art McMorris has come up with a slate of nominees for the next year. The nominees are:
For one-year terms:
President – Gregg Gorton
Vice-president – Barb Bassett
Secretary – Navin Sasikumar
Marty Dellwo will continue as Treasurer.
The nominees for Councillors-at-large for 3-year terms are Linda Rowan and Nilesh Shah.
The retiring Councillors are Katrina Rakowski and Dan Efroymson, and Art thanked them for their service.
Continuing Councillors are Linda Timlin, Michael Walter, Victoria Sindlinger, and Patrick McGill
As per our by-laws, the members present can nominate their own preferred candidates for any position, but there were no nominees from the floor.
The election of officers and council will take place at the first meeting of the next year. This meeting, which is the Annual Members Meeting, will be on the 2nd Thursday in January (rather than the usual first Thursday) at the Discovery Center.
Banquet – Gregg Gorton
Gregg said that everyone who commented about the banquet to him only had praise. The presentation by Mark Garland was awesome – it was challenging and the random video quiz questions leveled the playing field. Everyone gave a round of applause for Lauren Diamond for organizing yet another successful banquet.
Communication – Navin Sasikumar
No report
DEI – Navin Sasikumar
No report from Navin, but Gregg Gorton reminded those present that In Color Birding Club received a $2000 gift from DVOC to arrange buses to take students to green spaces in and around Philly. Navin also added that DVOC members can go to the In Color Birding club website and donate personally as well.
https://www.incolorbirding.org/contribute
Cassinia – Barb Bassett for Holger Pflicke
Everyone should have received an email from Holger. Cassinia is going digital, but if you want to receive a hard copy, please reply to Holger saying you want one. Marty Dellwo added that if members have not yet received an email, they should send a note to treasurer@dvoc.org with their up-to-date preferred email contact address.
Announcements
Gregg Gorton announced that DVOC past president and long-time member Don Jones passed away on November 24th and said that we’ll miss him tremendously. Nilesh Shah knew Don very well and said that he was a wonderful human being and a great birder and teacher. Nilesh will write the obituary for the next Cassinia issue. He said that if people knew Don well, they should email Nilesh so that he can write a comprehensive obituary. His email is niljean@gmail.com.
Local Notes
Bert Filemyr reported that a Hermit Warbler was found the day after Thanksgiving in Delaware County. It was feeding in pines at the staked-out location but it wasn’t seen yesterday or today.
Barb Bassett said that there was a Eurasian Marsh Harrier in Morris County.
Linda Widdop announced there were a few Rufous Hummingbirds near the shore.
Programs: Barb Bassett
Barb announced that the next meeting will be on December 15th This meeting will be the annual members’ photo contest. The judges have already met and the winners have been decided.
The Annual Meeting is on the 2nd Thursday of January at the Discovery Center. It will be a potluck as usual and there is a signup sheet for that in the digest.
More information on the Meetings page of the DVOC website for this and other upcoming meetings.
Evening Program
Scott Parkhill with Audubon Mid-Atlantic and Ben Larson with the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society tag teamed and gave an informative presentation on critical forest bird habitat needs and how numerous conservation organizations and agencies are taking collaborative, landscape-scale approaches to successfully address the challenge at scale in Pennsylvania.
Adjournment
After the presentation and questions, the meeting was adjourned at 9:06 pm.