New York State Ornithological Association
60th Annual Meeting

The Buffalo Ornithological Society is hosting the NY State Ornithological Association’s 60th Anniversary meeting in Batavia, NY on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, October 5, 6, and 7, 2007.  The weekend will feature two outstanding internationally known speakers, excellent birding trips, the NYSOA business meeting, and a research papers session.

UPDATED 9/27/07  Saturday night the keynote speaker will be Avian Ecologist Dr. Hector Galbraith, who resides in Dummerston, Vermont. Dr. Galbraith will be discussing Birds and Climate Change: Current and Future Impacts and Conservation Implication. Originally from Scotland, he began birding at the age of 11. For the first 15 years of his birding life he was an enthusiastic amateur with a leaning toward research projects involving banding, molt studies, and distributional projects. He began his PhD work on the reproductive ecology of northern lapwings at the University of Glasgow in the 1980's and his post-doctoral research on breeding Eurasian dotterels in the late 1980's. Dr. Galbraith moved to the US in 1990 and now runs Galbraith Environmental Services, a scientific consulting company, carrying out research into the likely effects of climate change on ecosystems, and the risks posed by contaminants in the environment. He has served as a consultant to various national and international bodies including the EPA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, British Petroleum, and the U.N. The results of this research have been published in over 60 papers in books and peer-reviewed journals. He also lectures regularly on his research, and for a number of years taught arctic/alpine ecology at the University of Colorado. In his spare time, Dr Galbraith likes nothing better than to go on birding trips to more or less remote parts of the globe, having visited Ecuador, South Africa, Peru, Australia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Japan, India and Kenya. He has also birded in many European countries.

UPDATED 8/24/07  Friday night's speakers are Marianne Hites and Judith Seiler of  Messinger Woods Wildlife Care and Education Center in Holland, New York. They will be discussing All About Owls with an emphasis on the natural histories of the attending Red Phase and Gray Phase Screech Owls, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Great Horned Owl, and  European Barn Owl.

Western New York and Southern Ontario provide excellent birding opportunities, with 388 recorded species (410 including subspecies). There will be field trips to Batavia Waste Water Treatment Plant complex, which draws a surprising number of migrants, vagrants and locals. In recent years there have been 23 species of waterfowl in October, often occurring in large numbers, for example over 2,000 Ruddy Ducks and over 500 Northern Shovelers, as well as 13 species of shorebirds. October rarities have included a Northern Wheatear, Eared Grebes and a Red-necked Phalarope. Other planned field trips include the 19,000-acre state and federal wetland complex (Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and Oak Orchard and Tonawanda State Wildlife Management Areas), and a trip to the Niagara River and Niagara Falls.

Schedule 9/30/07 Registration Form
(both in pdf format, requiring Adobe Reader)