Our Next Three Rivers Meeting
ON FEB 2, 2022
WE'LL LEARN ABOUT
SLOW BIRDING
We will reimagine our connection to birds at our February 2 meeting as Bridget Butler presents her talk "Slow Birding."
Bridget Butler, aka The Bird Diva, has been working in conservation and environmental education for more than 20 years. As the Bird Diva, she feels that birding is for anyone who enjoys and is curious about birds - if you take delight in noticing birds, you are a birder. Her Slow Birding work has been featured on numerous podcasts including the American Birding Podcast, Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds Podcast, and the South Africa podcast The Birding Life.
Bridget has worked for the Audubon Society in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts and helped to create Audubon Vermont's Forest Bird Initiative. Bridget lives in St. Albans, Vermont with her husband and three young children.
This will again be a Zoom meeting online starting at 7:00 PM ET, giving you access time to log on. Details on how to join the event, including Zoom passcodes and other instructions, will be supplied to members a few days before the meeting.
The business meeting will begin at 7:30 PM, and Bridget Butler's program will begin approximately at 8:00 PM ET, but be aware that the business meeting may not last 30 minutes, and the program may begin before 8:00.
FUTURE PRORGRAMS:
- April 6, 2022: Holly Merker - "Ornitherapy: For Your Mind, Body, and Soul"
- June 1, 2022: Katie Fallon - "Saving the Cerulean Warbler"
Last Updated on 1/23/2022
Items of Interest
FRICK PARK "DEAD OF WINTER" OUTING CANCELLED
Items of Interest
FRICK PARK "DEAD OF WINTER" OUTING CANCELLED
Due to the extremely low temperatures predicted for Saturday morning, January 22, the leader of the Frick Park "Dead of Winter" outing, Mike Fialkovich, and club officers have decided to cancel this outing. We are sorry for any inconvenience, but we would rather be safe than sorry given the poor conditions forecast that morning.
VIEW THE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER EDITION OF OUR NEWSLETTER -- THE PEREGRINE
The NOVEMBER/DECEMBER Edition of The Peregrine (in full color) is avaiable here: November/December 2021. See also Tom Moeller's photo gallery to accompany his "Observations" column: Cliff Swallows. You can also view a video of Cliff Swallows gathering mud for their nests here: Swallows Gathering Mud.
THE WRITTEN MINUTES AS WELL AS THE VIDEO OF OUR DECEMBER 1, 2021 MEETING ARE AVAILABLE
Read the Meeting Minutes for our December 1, 2021 gathering featuring our annual "Slide Slam: here: December 1, 2021 Minutes.
The video for this Slide Slam meeting is on our Past Zoom Meetings page.
WE ACCOMPLISHED MUCH IN 2021 IN SPITE OF COVID RESTRICTIONS
Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, our 2021 activities were somewhat limited, especially in the first part of the year. Steve Thomas was able to compile the six Zoom meetings we had, along with a full set of fall migration outings. See the year's history here: 2021 Events.
THE JANUARY BIRDING MAGAZINE FEATURES TWO 3RBC MEMBERS
ABA's Birding magazine's January 2022 edition celebrates its 2022 Bird of the Year, the Burrowing Owl. Two 3RBC members, Frank Izaguirre, new co-editor as well as book review editor of the magazine, and Tessa Rhinehart, known for her work in recording and categorizing bird songs, have excellent articles in the January issue.
photo by Daniel Lane
In the same issue, our University of Pittsburgh's techno-ecological expert Tessa Rhinehart has an extraordinarily well researched and well reported article about a newly described South American bird species, the Inti Tanager.
Read Tessa's article: "Data & Discoveries in the World of Birds."
PLAN AHEAD FOR OUR WINTER BIRDING OUTINGS
With COVID limitations easing somewhat, it has been decided to resume our most popular activity of bird outings, but with restrictions. Winter outings are planned for February and March. We do have a general statement that will be followed for all our outings. Also, the leader may have specific requirements that are stated in the outing description. Please read that statement and the requirements on each outing as you plan your choices. Find all this important information on our Outings page.
END OF AN ERA
BIRD WATCHER'S DIGEST CEASES PUBLICATION AFTER 43 YEARS
The birding world's iconic magazine Bird Watcher's Digest closed its doors on December 22, 2021. First published in 1978, the magazine's last printed edition is the January/February 2022 magazine. The March/April 2022 edition (pictured here) appears only as a digital magazine on the BWD website.
Bill Thompson's untimely death in March 2019, his mother Elsa Thompson's sudden demise in a house fire only two months later, and Bill's brother Andy Thompson's passing in 2020, followed by the Coronavirus pandemic together with financial losses and increased printing and mailing costs all contributed to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021 and the final decision in December 2021 to close down the business.
More information on the closure can be found at the Bird Watcher's Digest website and an article in The Marietta Times from December 30, 2021: "Bird Watcher's Digest closes doors".
LONGER ARTICLES ARE STILL AVAILABLE FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE
Here are six longer articles that members have written that were spread out over the Main page but are now in this single compilation. We hope you enjoy them again:
Geoff Malosh pursued a different prize in 2017 - a solar eclipse - in this article A Different Kind of Chase: Not for Birds This Time.
Kathy Siebert traveled to Ecuador in 2017 to find rare birds in Take the "Sun Route" to Enjoy Ecuador's Avian Wealth.
David Yeany, Jr. and his friends took a side trip from Magee Marsh one rainy day in 2018 to find a Kirtland's Warbler in his narrative Saving the Best for Last: A Kirtland's Warbler Adventure.
Frank Izaguirre's adventure in exploring snowy Canada for winter birds in February 2020 was a two-part article in subsequent editions of The Peregrine. Here are the two parts as one: Frigid Canada's Birds Warmed a Pair of Birders.
Tom Moeller also had a two-part article in two issues of The Peregrine on Cedar Waxwings. Again, the two parts appear here as one: Here's the Background on a Backyard Beauty.
Frank Izaguirre wrote an article for the January 2021 edition of Birding magazine. With permission of the magazine and its editor Ted Floyd, we can present a PDF of the article at this link: Celebrating the Stumpbreaker of Squirrel Hill.
SPECIES LISTS FROM RECENT OUTINGS BY THE CLUB
Click the link to see the complete list of 28 species for the Sewickley Heights Borough Park outing on August 27, 2021 as a PDF: Sewickley Heights List 8/27 (PDF).
Click the link to see the complete list of 43 species for the Sewickley Heights Borough Park outing on September 10, 2021 as a PDF: Sewickley Heights List 9/10 (PDF).
Click the link to see the complete list of 33 species for the Frick Park outing from September 12, 2021 on eBird: Frick Park.
Click the link to see the complete list of 39 species for the Deer Lakes Regional Park outing from September 12, 2021 on eBird: Deer Lakes Park.
Other Important Items
YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK TOO!
Three Rivers has its own Facebook page where the latest birding news from the web, upcoming events, member photos, and more can be found. Here you can also register reactions (Likes, Surpises, Loves, etc.) to the stories presented.
Find our Facebook page here: 3RBC FB.
THE AMERICAN BIRDING ASSOCIATION OFFERS EXCELLENT RESOURCES FOR BIRDERS
The American Birding Association (ABA) produces two interesting segments on its website, among many others. One is a video program called ABA Live! hosted by Nate Swick and the other is an ongoing series of essays by Ted Floyd called How to Know the Birds.
ABA Live! began presenting their "Virtual Bird Club" in March 2020 as the pandemic set in across the country and live meetings were discontinued. Various speakers gave virtual lectures on a range of topics. Interspersed with the "Virtual Bird Club" were programs asking the question "What's This Bird?", a live presentation taking questions on bird ID. The "Virtual Bird Club" has faded away, but "What's This Bird?" continues about every two weeks. You can find recordings of past programs at the ABA site here: ABA Live!
Birding magazine editor and 3RBC member Ted Floyd has written over 60 entertaining and informative essays for How to Know the Birds. The friendly essays are a celebration of the art, science, and delights of birding. These are different essays than found in his recent book with the same title. You can find all of his ABA essays here: How to Know the Birds.
The Home page for the ABA website is www.aba.org and the ABA has various Facebook pages, including ABA Birds and Birding and American Birding Association (ABA) Discussion Group.
PSO's PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS MAGAZINE: SEE WHAT YOU'VE BEEN MISSING
The Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology (PSO) publishes previews of the current issue of Pennsylvania Birds online, which consist of the cover, table of contents, and a featured article. Now anyone who does not subscribe or perhaps does not even know about PSO can actually see a little bit of what they've been missing, and hopefully be encouraged to join PSO! Click on the following link for an example of an article from the latest edition of Pennsylvania Birds: sample article.
Pennsylvania Birds is an all-volunteer effort, created and maintained by a group of Pennsylvania's most dedicated birders, but it is not an exclusive club. Anyone may contribute, whether a member of PSO or not, any original work related to birds or birding in Pennsylvania. If you have photos, article ideas, letters to the editor... as long as it is original work and related to birds or birding in Pennsylvania.
Consider joining PSO if you haven't already. They especially encourage the "beginners" out there, those of you who are just starting to discover the wonderful hobby of birding. In addition to being relatively inexpensive, membership buys you a year's subscription to Pennsylvania Birds and The Pileated, the PSO newsletter.
Find the Home page of the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology here: PSO.
