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Bird Club


Contents

  1. 1 History
  2. 2 Activities and Meetings
  3. 3 Trips
    1. 3.1 Short Trips (Home by Lunch)
    2. 3.2 Full Day Outings
    3. 3.3 Schedules (Both Full Day Outings and Short Trips)
  4. 4 Photos

History

There are records that birds and bird identification has been of interest to residents of Medford Leas from the beginning publications of the Medford Leas Life
in September of 1973. Articles entitled Bird Watchers Notes, and later in 1974, changed to For the Birds, were written by Billie Atwill. In the fall of 1975 an article by resident Ruth Carver tells of a trip to Edwin W. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge.

After Wayne and Gertrude Marshall arrived at Medford Leas in 1987, there were monthly Bird Club meetings and two “Field Trips” a year as “Birders’ went by the bus loads to Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge with lunch at the Sweetwater Casino. Other trips were to Cape May and Stone Harbor and another time to Reed’s Beach to see the migration of Red Knots. Wayne led the yearly January census of birds. The findings were sent to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Gertrude Marshall wrote nature articles about birds from 1988 – 2005. In 1991 Wayne Marshall, Robert Martin, James Wasson and Edward Wildman, with lists collected by Barbara Hitchens, created a pamphlet. This pamphlet listed birds seen at Medford Leas arranged by season and frequency of appearance and was revised in 2002. Wayne continued to actively lead the Bird Club until the fall of 2001 when David and Miriam Swartz agreed to lead the Bird Club meetings and Louise Tompkins took charge of arrangements for the monthly Field Trips. They do this with joy with the help of the Program and Field Trip committees.

Activities and Meetings

Twenty five to thirty residents meet September through June in the Theater the first Wednesday of the month at 10:30 AM. We have presentations either by an outside speaker or by our residents. We also have videos about birds. This winter one speaker told how to identify various sparrows, another about the owls that live here in New Jersey. Recently, we heard of a bird survey done at Rancocas State Park. Several of our members have gone to the Galapagos Islands and will show pictures and tell about their impressions of their trip.

Trips

Click on the bulleted items below to see the schedules of field trips arranged for spring of 2009.

Photos


Click here for full-screen slideshop of the Medford Leas Bird Club in Action
Note - when the page opens the slideshow will be paused.  
The play button is at the bottom of the screen.
It may not appear until you pull your cursor to the bottom of the screen. 

Subpages (2): Bird Club Photos Schedules