Nov. 12, 2008: The Houston Bird Survey
Speaker: Dr. Robert McFarlane

Bob McFarlane initiated the Houston Bird Survey in 2004 in order to determine the distribution of birds that live in the greater Houston region. The semi-annual surveys, conducted in January and June, are revealing interesting details about the micro-distribution of birds along an urban-suburban-rural gradient. Join us as Bob explains how citizen science projects, such as this survey, can make important contributions to scientific knowledge. Bob, a member of the HAS Board of Advisors, is an ornithologist and consulting ecologist with 45 years of professional experience. He is certified as a Senior Ecologist, a Wildlife Biologist, and a Fisheries Scientist. Among his published works is "A Stillness in the Pines: the Ecology of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker". He is currently developing new methodology to determine the potential impact of wind turbines on land and sea birds, including the use of marine radar to quantify birds.

Oct. 8, 2008: What Bird Food Looks Like
Speaker: Flo Hannah

What does bird food look like? Bird food looks like caterpillars, moths, and the millions of other insects that birds feed their nestlings. This presentation is inspired by Douglas Tallamy's book, Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens. Reading this book can change the way homeowners think about landscaping their yards and presents what individuals can do to stem the receding tide of biodiversity. Dr. Tallamy encourages every homeowner to landscape with native trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses because native insects cannot use alien (non-native) plants for food. The foliage of alien plants is inedible for almost all native insect herbivores. Instead, plantings of goldenrod, boneset, milkweed, black-eyed Susan, or other native perennials supply the insects birds need to raise their young. Insects are key to the intricate food web. It is important to landscape with plants native to our area in order to support a diversity of insects the plants have co-evolved with. Most alien plants that have naturalized have not been here long enough to be edible to our native insect population. We need to garden for insect diversity since insects are the key to the food web and key to the survival of birds.

Sept. 10, 2008: Houston Audubon World Travel Program
Speaker: Iain Campbell

Iain Campbell will focus his presentation on some of the exciting locales and birding opportunities that await participants in our tours. Iain is co-founder of Tropical Birding, our partner in the HAS World Travel Program. He has traveled the world over in search of rare birds, and claims to have just about forgotten where he's from in the process. Iain is very involved in bird conservation, having created Tandayapa Bird Lodge and Mindo Cloudforest Foundation, and he now spends a significant amount of his time on donor cultivation for conservation groups. Supporting youth birding is also very important to Iain, who was inspired to form Birding America following the success of the ABA's Young Adult Birders' Conference in 2005.

May 14, 2008: Breeding Songbird Specialties of East Texas
Speaker: Damien Carey

With the coming of spring, the songs of neotropic nesters begin to fill the air in East Texas woods of longleaf pine, pitcher plant and sundew, prompting birders to fill the roads in pursuit of East Texas specialties. Damien will cover the habits, sounds, and habitats of many neotropic breeding birds and highlight the specialty species of East Texas such as Chuck-will's-widow, Acadian Flycatcher, Prairie Warbler, Swainson's Warbler, and Bachman's Sparrow. His geographic focus will be the breeding grounds of these species, covering an area from Boykin Springs south to Village Creek. Damien Carey, a resident of Kingwood, is the founder of the Lake Houston Area Nature Club and has compiled the Lake Houston CBC for many years. He has contributed to many UTC conservation efforts including baseline bird surveys for Legacy Land Trust, Project Prairie Birds and the Texas Coastal Water Bird Census. For the past three years, he has served as president and a director of the Friends of Sheldon Lake State Park, which he also founded.

April 9, 2008: The Great Northwest: Birding Washington in June
Speaker: Bob Sundstrom

From deep marine bays and fir-draped mountains to steep basalt canyons and broad expanses of sagebrush, the diversity of Washington's landscapes and habitats is almost without equal. And the region supports a varied bird life to match. Early June finds the Pacific Northwest at the peak of the nesting season, with many species in full song and in finest breeding colors. This presentation will highlight the Northwest's natural world at this season, especially the birds, and help preview the tour of the region that HAS and Bob Sundstrom will run in June 2008. Bob has led VENT tours since 1989. A skilled birder with a special interest in bird song, Bob has served on the boards of several nature and conservation organizations. When not on tour, Bob keeps busy as the lead writer for the daily public radio program BirdNote.

March 12, 2008: The Songs of Insects
Speaker: Wil Hershberger

Wil Hershberger has been a naturalist most of his life. In the late '90s he became an avid natural sounds recordist, collecting the voices of frogs and birds. Turning his microphone to insects led Wil along a path of wonder and discovery that culminated in the creation of the book, The Songs of Insects, a celebration of the wonderful scrapes, shuffles, lisps, ticks, and chirps that these late season songsters produce. Wil brings us up to date on the genesis of his book. Following a walk through the biology of these singers, including how and why they sing, how they hear, as well as how humans perceive their songs, Wil begins an exploration of several individual species of singing insects. He will also share what he and others are doing to promote a new aesthetic of these singing insects.

February 13, 2008: Where the Woodpeckers Are: Woodpecker Distribution in Texas, and Beyond
Speaker: Steve Shunk

Texas hosts over half of the North American woodpecker species at some time of year, and ten species breed regularly in the state. Owing to its immense land area, many Texas woodpecker populations occupy distantly separated eco-regions, with only the East Texas Pineywoods supporting a broad diversity of nesting species. How did the different species get where they are today, and what adaptations have they acquired that restrict them to certain habitats? Join Oregon naturalist and woodpecker specialist Steve Shunk as he maps out Texas woodpeckers and sheds light on their unique natural histories and behaviors. Steve will discuss prehistoric and current distribution in Texas and beyond, as well as hybridization and range fluctuations occurring in the state.

For the last 10 years, Steve Shunk has studied woodpeckers on the east slope of Oregon's Cascade Mountains and across the continent, and he is nearing completion of the Peterson Reference Guide to Woodpeckers of North America. Steve leads birding tours across western North America through his company, Paradise Birding, and he coordinates bird surveys for various agencies and organizations from his home base in Central Oregon. Steve co-founded the East Cascades Bird Conservancy and served as its first President. He also co-founded the Oregon Birding Trails program and coordinated its flagship project, the Oregon Cascades Birding Trail.

January 9, 2008: Saving the Neches!
Speaker: Gina Donovan, HAS Executive Director

Flowing some 416 miles through beautiful bottomland hardwood forests, the mocha-colored Neches River is Texas' largest contiguous, least developed riverine habitat, supporting over 200 tree species, 47 mammals, 300 birds, and numerous species of reptiles, amphibians, freshwater mussels, and fish. Water developers are laying the political groundwork for construction of multiple reservoir projects on this ecologically important river in East Texas. Come learn about the Neches River and the vital habitat it provides to resident and migrating birds and other wildlife as Gina Donovan recounts her conservation work on this magnificent natural resource.

December 12, 2007: Katy Prairie Journal
Speaker: Fred Collins

Fred Collins first visited the Katy Prairie in 1966 and has come to know and love it, especially after he and his wife moved onto 100 treeless prairie acres 8 years ago. He has kept journals for more than 40 years and will share some of those pages with us. Fred has been active with HAS since 1972, having served as President and currently as chairman of the Citizen Science Committee. He's a life member of the Texas Ornithological Society and the Southwestern Association of Naturalists, a long-time member of the American Ornithologists' Union, the Wilson Society, Cooper's Ornithological Society and Association of Field Ornithologists. Fred is former Director of the Nature Discovery Center from 1994-2002, and since 2002 he's been employed by Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack to develop Kleb Woods Nature Center and Heritage Farm as well as guide the development of the Historic Park, Cypress Top. In addition, he is a member of the Katy Prairie Conservancy Advisory Board. Fred also works as a consultant wildlife biologist and lives on the Katy Prairie with his wife in their now empty nest with 8 dogs, 11 horses, an uncountable flock of free ranging chickens, 120 parrots and one cat. Well maybe the nest isn't exactly empty. But he and his wife's two sons have long since fledged.