3RBC Membership Meeting
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
"Who's Your Daddy?"

“Who’s Your Daddy?” may seem like a strange topic for a Three Rivers Birding Club meeting, but male-female promiscuity is a frequent occurrence in the world of birds. At our club meeting on Wednesday, December 8, we will find out why from one of the nation’s foremost experts in avian behavior and evolution.

NOTE: This meeting date is the second Wednesday of the month, a departure from our usual first-Wednesday schedule.

The meeting will be held at the Phipps Garden Center, 1059 Shady Avenue in Shadyside. Doors will open at 6:30 PM for socializing, the business meeting begins at 7:30, and the program starts at 8.

Our speaker will be Dr. Robert Fleischer, who heads the Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

His full program title is “Who’s Your Daddy? Extra-Pair Mating in Birds – How We Document It and Why They Do It.” He explains that with the advent of powerful DNA methods came an incredible ability for scientists to look within the “private” lives of animals.

A major discovery was that many songbirds, once considered a paragon of monogamy, actually have a remarkably high level of mating with birds outside their own pair. Dr. Fleischer will describe methods being used to study these behaviors both in the field and in the DNA laboratory.

He will share the results of his paternity tests of Carolina Wrens, House Wrens, Phainopeplas, Brown-headed Cowbirds, and Humboldt Penguins.

At membership meetings, bring in old bird-related magazines books, etc. that are no longer wanted, and set them on a table for anyone to take, free. If the materials are not taken, please take them home.