3RBC Membership Meeting
Take a Trip for Seabirds
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Our club will begin 2005 with a photographic trip on the high seas. Paul Hess, editor
of The Peregrine and an enthusiastic seabirder, will present a slide show titled "An Ocean of
Birds" on Wednesday, January 5 (See note below), at the Phipps Garden Center in Shadyside.
The meeting will begin at 7:30 PM. In 2005 the doors will open at 6:30 for socializing,
a half-hour earlier than in the past, although the refreshments may not always be ready until 7.
Paul will give us a look at many bird species found on the Atlantic Ocean but almost
never seen from the shore, such as tropicbirds, petrels, shearwaters, storm-petrels, jaegers,
and skuas. This will not be a detailed guide to seabird identification,
although some difficult identification problems will be noted.
Rather, the show is meant to capture the excitement of pelagic birding 30 to 90 miles offshore.
He has taken many pelagic trips off eastern Florida, the Bahamas, the Florida Keys,
North Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey, Long Island, and Massachusetts as a participant on
organized tours and with his son Eric, who is an ocean captain. Besides editing our newsletter,
Paul writes a "News and Notes" column for Birding magazine and formerly edited the Audubon
Society of Western Pennsylvania Bulletin. He received the 2003 Earl Poole Award from the
Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology for outstanding contributions to ornithology in the state.
The Garden Center is at 1059 Shady Avenue behind the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts at Fifth and Shady Avenues. Parking is 25 cents an hour in a metered lot, and more parking is available on Shady Avenue. In addition, Beechwood Boulevard, a block east of Shady, has free parking and is a short walk
through Mellon Park to the Garden Center. Detailed directions are on the Phipps website: http://www.phipps.conservatory.org/information/directions.html.
NOTE: Except in April and September, our meetings in 2005 will be on the first Wednesday of the month, a change from the present Monday meetings, to avoid conflicting with Botanical Society meetings held on Mondays. The year's meetings are scheduled for Wednesday, March 2; Wednesday, April 20; Wednesday, July 6; Monday, September 19, and Wednesday, November 2. The March 2 meeting will feature registered bird handler Earl Schriver of Beaver County with his live birds of prey.
