This was a hybrid meeting. The in-person portion was in the BEES room at the Academy. Instructions for registration were announced on the website and weekly digest.
Call to Order: President Gregg Gorton
Call to Order: 7:31 PM
Gregg (remote) introduced all the officers and welcomed guests.
Attendees: 30 on Zoom, 19 in person.
The minutes from February 2nd were approved.
Trustees Report – Chris Walters
We still have a sizable amount of money in our investment fund even though they did not do well last year due to market conditions. The investment fund is made up of money from life memberships.
Committee Reports
Membership Committee – Nilesh Shah
We have twelve new members this year: ten in January and two in February. If we keep up the pace, we’ll have a record number for the year. We’re getting many new members through their connection with current members, often, when they join bird walks conducted by the club.
Gregg said that Lauren Diamond is going to be ordering more business cards so that walk leaders and other club members can hand them out to potential new members.
Field Trips – Linda Widdop
Email Linda Widdop, linda@techimpact.org, if interested in leading any field trips.
Upcoming field trips:
- February 18 @ 8:00 am – 10:00 am – Bird Walk at the Discovery Center with Patrick McGill
- February 18 @ 8:00 am – 10:30 am – Navy Yard with Manny Dominguez
- February 18 @ 9:00 am – 11:00 am – Great Backyard Bird Count walk Laurel Hill East with Navin Sasikumar
- February 18 @ 9:00 am – 11:00 am – Great Backyard Bird Count walk Laurel Hill East with Michael Walter
- February 19 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 am – Naylors run at Upper Darby with Lynne Rabchuk and Jamie Watts
- February 25 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Woodcocks at Verree Meadow with Patrick McGill
- February 26 @ 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm – Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area joint trip with Wyncote Audubon led by Judy Stepanaskie
- March 3 @ 8:00 am – 12:00 pm – Bartram’s Garden with Ben Filreis
- March 5 @ 9:00 am – 2:00 pm – Late Winter Barnegat Light and Long Beach Island, NJ (Joint trip with Wyncote Audubon) led by Linda Widdop and Martin Selzer. Please register for this trip.
Nilesh Shah said that two of the above trips are being led by new members!
Billings – Gregg Gorton for Art McMorris
Art is processing the lists that have come in and will be making a determination soon on who the Billings winner is for 2022.
Conservation – Gregg Gorton for Anne Bekker
Gregg updated us on the progress at the Oakwell property in Villanova where the Lorimer school district has a plan to cut down about 476 trees – 150 of them very old and a hundred eligible for heritage status – to create athletic fields. Gregg said that he heard that some of the baseball and softball games will be played at the JCC rather than at Oakwell, and progress is being made towards not having as many athletic fields thanks to the huge amount of public pressure against this project.
Cassinia – Gregg Gorton and Holger Pflicke
Gregg said that the latest issue of Cassinia has been released. Hard copies should have been mailed out and members should have received them already. Digital versions are also available on the website.
Holger said he is in the process of gathering copies and he asked those who haven’t received them yet to please be patient. As for the next issue of Cassinia, Holger has all the ‘feature’ articles he needs and any further submissions will have to be for the issue after that.
Communication – Navin Sasikumar
Navin is resigning as the web admin. Victor Lefevre has very graciously agreed to volunteer for the position and Navin will be training Victor over the next few months.
DEI – Navin Sasikumar
Nothing new to report
Announcements
Barb Bassett announced that there is a new exhibit that is opening this Saturday at the Academy – Conversations with Birds. A members-only preview opening happened on the day of the meeting and many meeting attendees also got to visit the exhibit prior to the meeting. Academy staff have a live specimen preparation table. DVOC is mentioned along with other bird clubs. Bird Safe Philly is also highlighted at the exhibit and the bird strike victims from the 2020 mass collision event are being displayed.
Barb also added that we are trying to figure out if we can have a meeting at the exhibit.
Local Notes
Steve Mattan reported that “Timberdoodles” (American Woodcocks) have returned (twittering and kissing but no peents yet) to his yard at Piney Place, Southampton, Burlington County, NJ. He also said that wood frogs were calling in the back pond this evening. In addition, he had two Pileated Woodpeckers and eighty Snow Geese fly over.
Patrick McGill said that there was a Merlin sitting on a church steeple on his block today in the Germantown area in Philly.
Kristen Cooney said that Bryn Coed Preserve in Northern Chester County has had a great showing of Northern Harriers this winter. They said that some nights have had 5-6 individuals hunting/fighting for territory over the meadows.
Phil and Bonnie Witmer reported a Pileated Woodpecker and two American Goldfinches in an aerial display at their yard in Chester County.
Programs: Barb Bassett
Barb announced that the next meeting will be on March 2nd. Due to some of the officers’ schedules, the next meeting is going to be fully virtual. She still hasn’t figured out the speaker though she has a few possibilities so stay tuned for more info.
More information on the Meetings page of the DVOC website for this and other upcoming meetings.
Evening Program
Emily gave a fascinating talk about Long-eared Owl plumage. She said that owls usually don’t have much variation between the sexes, but Long-eared Owls are an exception and are sexually dimorphic. Many owl feathers fluoresce under UV lights and the amount of fluorescence can be used to age Long-eared Owls. She gave us a live demonstration of feathers glowing pink under UV light.
Many of the audience members were enthralled and there was a multitude of questions for Emily after her prepared talk from both the in-person and virtual audience.
Adjournment
After the presentation and questions, the meeting was adjourned at 9:14 pm.