May 2024 Meeting Minutes

O5/13/2024 

Cayuga Bird Club Minutes

Foundation of Light

Attendance: 41

• At 7:20 pm Suan began the Reading of the List, with instructions to just say yes if you’ve seen the bird in the past 7 days within the Cayuga Lake Basin, which consists of the 30 mile radius of Long Point State Park.  

• Call to Order at 7:30 by President Stephanie. She welcomed 3 newcomers who introduced themselves. 

• This is our final regular business meeting of the season; we take a break in the summer for July and August and resume regular 2nd Monday of the month meetings in September. The location of meetings starting in the Fall remains to be determined, but we have started the conversations to return to the Lab of Ornithology’s Visitors Center.

• Monday, June 10th at 6pm we will be our annual dish-to-pass picnic at Myer’s Point Park, Lansing. We have reserved the “E” pavilion next to the gazebo where the Motus station is located. Please bring your own place settings, utensils and beverages. After dinner, we will enjoy a leisurely bird walk at Myers. 

• Prior month’s meeting minutes were approved. (Minutes can be viewed on the cayugabirdclub.org Home Page via the “See Meetings and Speakers Page” link.)

• Upcoming Field Trips:

• Thursday, 5/16, Josh Snodgrass is leading a weekday trip to Schuyler County Birding hotspots, including Cayuta Lake, the access road, then a couple nearby hotspots, looking for breeding birds and late migrants.

• Saturday, 5/17, Scott Sutcliffe is hosting a 2 hour early morning bird and wildflower walk on his 100-acre farm in Trumansburg. It’s a haven for birds, with a couple of miles of foot-friendly trails along a mature forest stretch of Taughannock Creek, through Woodcock fields, and ending in a Bobolink meadow. Participants will first meet and bird from his barn (which has a barn list of 60+ species all on its own,) enjoy coffee, conversations, and muffins, and then amble along the trails, all of which are relatively tick-free. Park in the side field, marked with a peace flag, then amble up to the barn.

• Sunday, 5/18, for those who have registered, Steve Kress & Jared Dawson will be leading groups to Greensprings Natural Cemetery and Arnot Forest. Greensprings has excellent habitat for migratory birds at this time of year, including field birds such as Bobolinks and Field Sparrows. Arnot Forest has many thrushes, warblers, vireos, and other returning songbirds at this time of year. Bring a snack and something to drink and dress for the weather. Waterproof boots may be helpful. See Website for directions to Greensprings.

• Memorial Day Weekend CBC is very busy! 

• Saturday, 5/25, Laura and Jared will lead a walk at Shindagin Hollow State Forest for warblers and other birds during this peak period of migration and breeding. The group will walk 1-2 miles while birding along Shindagin Hollow Road, ending by 11:30 am. Wear good walking shoes (may be muddy), bring a hat, bug spray, water, and a snack. 

• Sunday, 5/26, Gladys Birdsall will be leading a walk at the Salt Point Natural Area in Lansing, along the Salt Point trails, checking the wooded area, Salmon creek, and Cayuga Lake. Orchard Orioles, Ospreys, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and many other birds breed here. 

•  Also on Memorial Day weekend, the club is planning a thank you for the State Parks for their flexibility regarding postponing the illumination at Taughannock SP to celebrate the 100th anniversary of NYS Parks. Illumination of Taughannock Falls for three nights in mid April coincided with the nesting period of the Peregrine Falcons.  A communication campaign was mobilized that successfully resulted in the event being postponed. The birding community is most grateful to NYS Parks for taking this precaution, as are no doubt the Peregrines, whose eggs appear to have hatched on April 17, the day before the scheduled event!  In recognition of this, Cayuga Bird Club is planning to host a Peregrine viewing event, with spotting scopes pointing at the nest for public viewing, and to share information about the rich history of Peregrines at Taughannock Gorge. The club was just granted the permit to host the event, which will appear on the club calendar and Facebook page with dates and times, depending on volunteer availability. Suan is heading this up so please contact him with your availability to participate Saturday, Sunday & Monday of Memorial Day Weekend. 

• Beginner Bird Walks at Sapsucker Woods continue every Saturday & Sunday at 8:30am. 

• Youth Birding: Our Youth Birding group continues to have fantastic adventures. 5/5, they saw Peregrines and Ravens nesting at Taughannock, a Robin nest with young, several clusters of Canada goslings, and Great Horned Owlets at Montezuma for a total of 65 species. There are 2 more Youth Birding trips planned for the summer, first to Seneca Meadows, and the second to Shindagin Hollow.

•  The June youth trip was moved to June 8 to coincide with the bird banding at Seneca Meadows. For those interested in Bird Banding @ Seneca Meadows, it is a FREE event open to all individuals, families, groups and friends. Bring water & wear a hat. Photography is encouraged! To be on a list to be informed in case conditions change, Google “Seneca Meadows Bird Banding” for the 2024 event

• Conservation Action Committee (CAC) functions to  support relationships between birds and plants, to deepen connections to places and promote the idea of community conservation. Join the discussion of how we can best achieve CAC goals. A “pizza & privet” party is planned. Contact Jody. 

• It's Atlasing time. Blockbusting trips TBA. This is the 5th and final year. Jane Graves needs to have a list of incomplete blocks. Talk to Meena after the meeting. 

• Motus Update by Diane Morton.  (NOTE: MOTUS is not an acronym, but Latin for movement or motion.) We have two radio towers to detect migratory birds as they fly over. Myers Point Motus picked up a hermit thrush; it had pinged in Montreal in October,  November in West Virginia and prior to pinging here 4/23, it pinged in North Carolina. From our location it has migrated to southern Ontario.

• CBC is hosting the Annual 2025 New York State Ornithological Association Conference & Diane Morton provided an update. The last time CBC hosted NYSOA Conference was in 2014. It will be a three day event, the 3rd weekend in September, 9/19-9/21/2025. We expect about 200 people. It will take many hands as there are field trips to organize, keynote speakers and vendors to arrange, etc. All who have participated in the past have described it as a fun event.

• Next Monday, 5/20 at 6pm at Sumo, all are invited to dinner to honor our speaker, since we did not have it before tonight’s meeting, which is customary. Sign up after the meeting if you are interested in attending.

• John Confer announced that with the help of Geo Kloppel, nine Merlin nests have been located in Tompkins County. He requested members let him know where Merlins are spotted.

• Ton Schat acknowledged Laura Stenzler who booked Foundation of Light & with help, set up equipment for tonight’s presentation & recording. She was warmly applauded.

• Tonight’s presentation began at 7:45 & ended at 8:35, after a very enthusiastic Q&A. 

• Tonight’s presentation: Return to Puffin Paradise: Alaska’s Pribilof Islands. Speaker: CBC member Marie Read, a local bird photographer whose glorious photos are published in magazines, books, and calendars worldwide. She’s won numerous awards, including Highly Commended for Birds in Flight, in the 2023 Bird Photographer of the Year Contest. Her articles and photo essays about bird behavior and bird photography have appeared in Living Bird, Bird Watching, Nature’s Best, and Wild Planet, among others. She also has authored or co-authored six books, including the best-selling title, Mastering Bird Photography: the Art, Craft and Technique of Photographing Birds and Their Behavior. This evening she will be sharing her story of obstacles, challenges and adventures returning to a bird photographer’s paradise, located in a remote island group far out in the Bering Sea.