Next 3RBC Membership Meeting
chasing Great Gray Owls
WE'LL LOOK AT FIELD GUIDES
IN OUR OCTOBER 7 ZOOM MEETING
Frank Izaguirre will present, "Field Guides and Environmental Thinking." Frank will answer the question: What do field guides do? He says that field guides are politically consequential texts that persuade the way people conceive of animals, plants, and the many other objects they catalogue.
Our October Zoom meeting online will feature our regular announcements and Frank’s program on October 7, 2020 at 7:00 PM EDT, giving you time to log on. The business meeting will begin at 7:30 PM and the presentation will start at 8:00 PM EDT.
Frank will discuss three major eras of field guide authorship, first discussing the values and conventions of early natural history texts, then focus on some of the now largely forgotten but hugely influential authors who invented the field guide, and conclude with an in-depth look at Roger Tory Peterson and his Field Guide to the Birds.
Frank thinks field guides have profoundly changed the way people think about the world, and he hopes that after this talk, you will see field guides in a new way as well.
Frank Izaguirre is the Book and Media Reviews Editor for Birding magazine and a PhD candidate in English at West Virginia University, where he is dissertating on how field guides have influenced environmental thinking. He has also served as a Technical Reviewer for Birder's Guide, has written for a number of other bird and nature-related magazines and journals, and has previously judged the writing and field notebook modules for the ABA's Young Birder of the Year Contest.
More details on procedures and logging on will be sent along with the access codes.
If you are interested, you'll be able to connect to the program by the Zoom app on your computer, tablet, or smartphone. Download a free Zoom app to your device in advance at this website: https://zoom.us/download#client_4meeting.
Future Programs:
- December 9, 2020 — Annual Slide-slam Program NOTE: This is the second Wednesday of December.
- February 3, 2021 — Sarah Sargent of the Erie Bird Observatory
- April 7, 2021 — Carlos Sanchez will present "Birding Spain"
- June 2, 2021 — Mark Bonta will present "Fire Hawks: Arsonists or Land Managers"
What's New? (9/20/2020)
THE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 EDITION OF THE PEREGRINE IS NOW AVAILABLE!
The September/October 2020 issue of The Peregrine is online.
Also, see additional photos for Tom Moeller's 'Observations' column on Cedar Waxwings (PDF).
VIDEO OF OUR AUGUST 2020 MEETING IS AVAILABLE
For those of you who missed our first Zoom meeting or would like to see it again, here is the video of our entire membership meeting from August 5, 2020, featuring Tessa Rhinehart's program "Eavesdropping on Birds." President Sheree Daughterty starts things off with several announcements and then turns the program over to Tessa and her fine presentation. Tessa then answers questions from the audience submitted via Chat during the talk.
Being our first recorded meeting, there are a few glitches at the beginning where the screen goes dark, but things get better as the meeting progresses. You may notice the video goes over the border of the page, but that is so we can present the highest quality version of this program. The video runs 65 minutes in length.
HIGHLIGHTS LIST OF BIRD SIGHTINGS FROM SPRING AND SUMMER
Mike Fialkovich, Bird Reports Editor, has prepared a highlights list of the birds reported in the Three Rivers area during spring and summer 2020. This is in lieu of a report during the August 5, 2020 Zoom meeting. Click on this link for the PDF report: Highlights.
ALLEGHENY BIRD CONSERVATION ALLIANCE NEEDS HELP FROM BIRDERS
The Allegheny Bird Conservation Alliance partners - Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and Carnegie Museum of Natural History – are working with Allegheny GoatScape to remove invasive plants, restore native plants, and monitor bird and habitats in the Clayton Hill area of Frick Park. The partners would like to see birders accessing the area beginning now and through September to add eBird observations for the restoration areas.
Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy will also be placing temporary signs to help delineate separate restoration areas on the trails within the Clayton Hill area. One important component is for observations for each eBird Hotspot to be associated with the corresponding restoration area.
Find more information on the Clayton Hill restoration areas at this website: Allegheny Birds.
Click here for a downloadable map of the four designated areas: Clayton Hill map.
'BLACK BIRDERS WEEK' PROMOTES DIVERSITY AND TAKES ON RACISM IN THE OUTDOORS
Sparked by a racist incident last week in Central Park, the new initiative aims to boost recognition and representation of Black people enjoying and studying the natural world. Read more about this vital topic in the article by Jillian Mock here:
Black Birders Week.
Corina Newsome birding
Read the back story of why the #BlackBirdersWeek was created in Julie Grant’s article “Racist birding incident sparks joyful online event #BlackBirdersWeek” on The Allegheny Front website: The Allegheny Front.
Juita Martinez
BIRD SONG OPERA - A Delightful Diversion for Birders
As an escape from the stress of COVID-19, we wanted to present some 'light opera' performed by birds from around the world titled Bird Song Opera. This is an original video conceived and created by Volker Pannes of www.shakeup.de, a German website. Volker based this 'opera' on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute, which he rearranged and edited for this video.
Take some time to enjoy this video and see how many of the birds in it you can identify. There is a helpful list at the end of all the performers.
View this delightful video on our "Videos" page.
MORE DIVERSIONS AS WE WAIT FOR BETTER DAYS
In addition to the “Bird Song Opera,” we have many videos to enjoy on our “Videos” page. Click “Videos” on the Side Menu to see many interesting bird videos.
Also, on our “Links” page there are 15 ‘Live Wildlife WebCams’ to choose from to entertain you. Most are bird webcams, but there are also wildlife (deer, foxes, elk, squirrels, etc.) cams. Three of the links lead to a variety of webcams to increase your viewing choices. Again, click “Links” in the Side Menu and look under ‘Live Wildlife WebCams.’
Hopefully, you are getting out to enjoy the spring migration (with proper social distancing), but you can also enjoy Nature virtually with our video and webcam selections.
THE VIDEO PAGE HAS MORE NEW TAPES!!
Our "VIDEOS" page has several more videos by members, incluing Virginia Rails in Harrison Hills Park, a Baltimore Oriole enjoying an orange, a Red-tailed Hawk nestling expelling a pellet, and a new video of an American Avocet in Pittsburgh.
Click on "Videos" in the Side Menu to find these interesting videos by members!
SEE THE PAGE CREATED FOR LOWELL BURKET'S DISCOVERY OF THE THREE SPECIES, TWO GENERA WARBLER!
If you're wondering where photos of the "Burket's Warbler" have gone, you'll have to look on the new webpage created for all the information on that exciting new bird. There are photos, background information, links to articles and interviews, and more. Be sure to read about the new honor received by Dave Toews, the researcher who deciphered the three-species warbler's DNA.
Click on "'Burket's Warbler' News" on the side menu to see this new page.
Bird Species Lists of Recent Outings
View the 18 species seen on the FRICK PARK Dead of Winter Outing III (January 25) on eBird: Frick Park List.
View the 25 species seen on the GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT at SEWICKLEY HEIGHTS BOROUGH PARK outing (February 15) as a PDF: Sewickley Heights GBBC List.
Items to Note!
ABA CODE OF ETHICS
The American Birding Association's Principles of Birding Ethics now has its own page (ABA Code of Ethics) on this website. All birders are reminded to follow these guidelines while birding for the protection of the birds, respect for the environment, and enjoyment of other birders.
THE AMERICAN BIRD ASSOCIATION'S ABA LIVE! CONTINUES DISCUSSIONS OF NEW BIRDING TOPICS
The American Birding Association continues its Virtual Bird Club series on ABA Live! about every two weeks. The earlier programs on the site are replaced by newer ones. Right now three recent talks in the series available are these: "Exploring Attu" by Christian Hagenlocher from June 3, "A Story of Perseverance; The Brown Pelicans of Coastal Louisiana" by Juita Martinez from June 17, and "Birding for Everyone; A Conversation with Tykee James, Nicole Jacjson, and John C. Robinson" from June 25.
(See below for even older programs.)
Ted Floyd, editor of Birding magazine and the author of many articles and books on birds and nature AND a 3RBC member, presented "How to 'See' Birdsong; Sound Spectrograms 101" on July 22. You can still see this recorded program on ABA Live!
Go to ABA Live! to view this and the other three recent programs.
The older programs from ABA Live! are still available at a separate site. You can find any that you may have missed in the Virtual Bird Club archive on YouTube here: Archive.
2019 WAS A BUSY YEAR FOR THE THREE RIVERS BIRDING CLUB!
Steve Thomas has compiled a summary of the club's 2019 activities. Check it out!
Plus, Mike Fialkovich has compiled the 2019 Birds Reported in Allegheny County summary.
PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS -- See what you've been missing!
The Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology (PSO) publishes sample article from the current issue of Pennsylvania Birds online. Anyone who does not subscribe or perhaps does not even know about PSO can now actually see a little bit of what they've been missing, and hopefully be encouraged to join PSO!
Follow us on FACEBOOK!
Be sure to visit our club's Facebook page for up-to-date news on happenings with the club, member photos, or links to other birding sites.
Longer Articles are Still Available
Read Kathleen Siebert's article on her journey to Ecuador Take the "Sun Route" to Enjoy Ecuador's Avian Wealth, and Geoff Malosh's tale of chasing the sun's eclipse A Different Kind of Chase: Not for Birds This Time.
Don't forget David Yeany II's wonderful report by about his adventure pursuing a Kirtland's Warbler in Michigan with friends on a "slow" day at Magee Marsh in May 2018: Kirtland's Warbler.
Plus, enjoy the stunning gallery of birds and scenery from Northwest Argentina, which is an adjunct to Claire Staples' article "A Very High Adventure: Birding to 15,000 Feet in Argentina's Andes" [The Peregrine Vol. 18, No. 2, March/April 2019], can still be enjoyed: Northwest Argentina.
The Peregrine "Online-only" Option Remains Available to Members
Our members may choose NOT to receive a paper copy of our newsletter The Peregrine, in order to reduce clutter, save trees, or protect the environment. If you only want to view our newsletter online, please email Tom Moeller at thosjmoel@gmail.com and ask him to put you on the "online only" list to NO LONGER receive paper copies of The Peregrine.
Our membership rates remain the same with this change. It is your preference whether or not to receive the paper copy of the newsletter.
The List of Birding Checklists
We offer many checklists on our Outings page. There are now nine (9) lists you can download and use as you explore these birding hotspots. Check them out!
