October Meeting Minutes

Cayuga Bird Club Meeting Minutes  14 October 2019 
Cornell Lab of Ornithology  Ithaca NY   

The meeting began at 7:30 pm. President Diane Morton welcomed members and visitors.   Thanks for cookies: Tracy McLellan, Diane Morton  

Minutes approved   

Annual Meeting of the Cayuga Bird Club   Election of Club Officers:  President: Diane Morton  Vice-President: Donna Scott  Treasurer: Ken Kemphues  Corresponding Secretary: Colleen Richards  Recording Secretary: Poppy Singer  Director: Bob McGuire   Motion made to accept the above slate of officers by Ton Schat. Seconded by Carl Steckler.   

New Initiatives update: 
Spring Ornithology with Steve Kress. Tuesday evenings, March 24 - May 12 at Foundation of Light on Turkey Hill Rd. Registration open at cayugabirdclub.org or mail-in available and pay by check. Cost is $125 for club members or $140 for non-members (incl. 1-yr membership in CBC). Flyers/registration forms passed around as Steve Kress introduced himself and made personal invitation to the classes.   

Motus Receiving station components purchased. Installation event Sat., Oct. 19 @ 2pm at Myers Park Pavilion E. All CBC members invited to attend.   

Annual Review:  Diane Morton, club president, spoke about an active year of Club membership growth (55+ new). Also increased participation in Christmas Bird Count (159). Thanks given to Laura Stenzler for organizing speakers for club meetings as well as Bob McGuire for organizing field trips. Last year the club had more leaders/ participants than past years. Diane recognized our first eBird workshop (2/19) and announced another on Nov. 24 possibly. There were also several outreach activities, such as those at Stewart Park, the Sciencenter, Migration Celebration at CLO and various Conservation Action committee projects. Plus the regular weekend bird walks at Sapsucker Woods. Diane also acknowledged Ken Kemphues’ work as treasurer. He reported that the annual budget was covered by dues and donations. Diane also spoke of other sources of income for the Club, including sales of Birding the Cayuga Lake Basin of over $600 $800 last year (amount corrected by DM), with special thanks to Bob McGuire, Marie Read and Ann Mitchell for their work in that overall endeavor. The eBay auction of items donated by Richard Tkachuck was another source of income for the club.   The Conservation Action committee was also busy during the past year. Last February the Club voted to support a number of activities, including:  Nest boxes in Stewart Park and Lighthouse Point Natural Area  Purple Martin House at Stewart Park  5 pairs of binoculars for public bird walks  Habitat improvement project for birds at the Cornell Botanic Garden’s Natural Area (aka Jetty Woods), helped by students from New Roots School. 

 Jody Enck gave a report on the ongoing habitat improvement work.   

A sign-up was started for help with a “Cayuga Bird Club T-shirts” project.   

A brief update on the September Montezuma Muckrace - the CBC sponsored team, Arrogant Bustards, raised the most money this year for the Friends of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex. $1900! Thanks to all contributors.   

Field Trips: Oct. 6 trip report given by Ken Haas (37 species). Oct.12 & 13 sparrow walks by Mark Chao at Freese Rd. Community gardens had 7 sparrow species on Sat. and 9 on Sunday. Add-on visit to Bluegrass Lane cattails yielded Nelson’s Sparrow for 4 participants.   

Upcoming Field Trips: Sun., Oct. 20 Phil McNeil “where the birds are” 8am-noon  Sun., Oct. 27 Bob McGuire all day trip up the lake 7:30-5  Fri., Nov. 1 Suan Yong and Bob McGuire, Owling 6-10 pm [rain date: Nov.2]  Sun., Nov.10 Suan Yong, Loon watch at Taughannock SP 6:30-8:40 am  Details for all these trips are on Club calendar at cayugabirdclub.org  Future trip noted to Conowingo Dam, Maryland, led by Carl Steckler Nov. 30 - Dec. 1.  

Other events:     Oct. 21 CLO Seminar 7:30 Dr. Sara Kaiser, “A Walk in the Woods: a half-century of bird discoveries at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest”     Nov. 4 CLO Seminar 7:30 Dr. Ken Rosenberg, conservation scientist at Cornell Lab “3 Billion Birds Lost: the Bird Crisis and what we can do about it.”     Nov. 12 Next CBC meeting: Christina Hoh, NYSDEC Biologist, will speak on “Monitoring New York’s Winter Raptors”, incl. Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls.   

Donna Scott read the list of Cayuga Lake Basin Birds. 120 birds were recorded in the past week.  

Program speaker: Bryant Dossman, a PhD student at Cornell, “Unlocking the Mystery of Migration”. Bryant shared how using a large-scale automated radio telemetry array spanning the Caribbean and Florida, overlapping the migratory route of populations of redstarts and other passerines, could help us better understand the linking of wintering events to migration timing and speed.  

The meeting adjourned at 9:15 pm.