March 2025
Meeting Minutes

Minutes of Cayuga Bird Club Monthly Meeting
Monday, March 10, 2025 at Cornell Lab of Ornithology Auditorium. 

7:20 Reading of the List

by club member, BBW leader and active Conservation Action Committee participant, Tracy McLellan

7:30 Call to Order

and welcome guests (only one tonight – speaker Morgan Hapeman)

No additional meeting note corrections reported; last month’s approved as written

Cookies!

Tonight’s cookie thank you goes out to 28-year club member, Linda Clougherty (who was celebrating her birthday today, but was unable to attend tonight’s meeting).

If you enjoy baking and are interested in sharing tasty treats, please sign up for the final remaining slot in May.

Next Meeting

Our next club next meeting is Monday April 14th

here at the Lab Visitor Center auditorium.

Our speaker will be poet, author, essayist, and naturalist, Diane Ackerman. 

Join us she takes us on an extraordinary journey from the breeding grounds of the short-tailed albatross, to the nursery waters of southern right whales in next month’s presentation: Wings and Waves – Adventures with Albatrosses and Whales from Japan to Patagonia.

Youth Birding Trips

The latter half of February and early March were a bit light on field trips, so I would like to swap things a bit tonight. 

First, is Meena here tonight?

I want to thank Meena for being our club’s field trip chair for the past 2 years!

Then I would like to ask our new field trip committee chair, Suan Yong, to provide a couple updates on recent Youth Birding field trips, the second of which was open to the Club members.

Saturday, February 15 - Trip to Montezuma

·       Highlights: Snowy Owl sightings, Bald Eagle presentation and sightings

Saturday, March 8 - Local Birding & Cornell Raptors Program

·       We had 33 adults & 14 youth attend—several folks from the bird club and a family that was at Diane's morning BBW!

Details are still TBD for the planned March 30th Youth Birding trip

Upcoming CBC Field Trips

This weekend, join Suan on a full-day wild goose chase as we drive around Cayuga Lake in search of Snow Geese, who will hopefully be gathering in large numbers in the area (recent scouting found some rafts). Along the way, we should find plenty of other birds.

Meet at Stewart Park's east parking lot (turn right at the stop sign) to carpool. 

We will stop along the way for food, likely at the Circle K, but feel free to bring your own food, and drink or snacks.

And for this, and all CBC field trips, please dress for the weather!

If you’d prefer to wait for a shorter trip, join Ken Haas for a half-day exploration of the west side of Cayuga Lake for early Spring migrants and late Winter visitors,

both on the water and perhaps in nearby fields on Sunday, March 23

We'll meet at the NW corner of the parking lot between the dog walk and the marina,

and carpool to various sites; there is a link on the website calendar entry to the map of the parking lot, in case that location is new to you.

Maybe you’d rather enjoy an evening outing?  Join Scott Sutcliff at Andrew Farm in Trumansburg the last week of March, which has a wide variety of habitats for birds.  There we will visit some fields to enjoy the spectacle of the Woodcock skydance.

Park in the side field, marked with a peace flag— you can’t miss it, then amble up to the barn.  The exact date will be decided based on weather,

so please check the website calendar for updates and link to map.

And to wrap trips up before our next meeting, we expect another half day trip in April.

Join Gladys Birdsall in birding some parks and preserves in Lansing which are always great for Spring birding.  We will meet at Myers Park, out near the pavilion closest to the spit, then carpool from there, making our way up to the Finger Lakes Land Trust's new Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs.

Gladys could not be here tonight, so if you have questions, you can email Gladys at gjb5@outlook.com.

Conservation Action Committee

The Cayuga Bird Club’s Conservation Action Committee has kicked off the year

by reaffirming their goals for 2025 to benefit birds and educate the public

about the importance of bird conservation.

To help the CAC meet those goals, the committee has committed

to monthly Saturday workdays that are now included in the club calendar.

And while the notion of CAC workdays, for some, may conjure the image of removing privet

and other non-native, invasive plant species, erecting rabbit- and deer-proof fencing,

and planting native plants, there are other fun and educational roles for people to play as well.  So please check the calendar and join us for one of our work sessions!

Help Wanted

The club is engaged in a very wide variety of activities to support our club purpose, so tonight’s Help Wanted is for two things:

1.       We are perennially looking for help on the Tech Team to assist with the various and growing technical needs of the club.  For example, each meeting requires a certain amount of setup work with laptops, phones, the projection and sound systems and so on, so if anyone out there has relevant technical skills, please let Stephanie or Suan know your interests and availability.

2.       Also, we are looking for people reasonably familiar with target grassland bird species – Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark, Red-winged Blackbird, Savannah Sparrow, and Swamp Sparrow – who would be interested in attending training sessions in late April/early May and joining the team of grassland birders for local breeding season surveys.  Suan will also be the contact person for this help wanted ad!

Spring Ornithology with Steve Kress

Our Spring Ornithology course with Steve Kress is just around the corner

with registration closing next week – March 17th

We now have:

•        52 registrants, and

•        8 scholarships (6 educators, 2 youth)

•        35 Kendal residents

•        For a total of 87 participants

NYSOA 2025

www.nysoa.org

Looking for volunteers to help on the weekend of the conference itself – registration tables, etc; contact Diane Morton if interested!  Online registration opens April 1st.

Birds of a Feather

To wrap things up I wanted to share two announcements:

1)       of an event in March that also showed up in this month’s newsletter (The Power of Birds to Transform Conservation).  Not only does this event kickoff the Ithaca Native Landscape Symposium, it also benefits an Interpretive Sign for the Fuertes Bird Sanctuary Overlook at Stewart Park

2)       Club member Nick Tubbs’ family has a house at Cape May and is open to renting to interested CBC members.  Contact Nick at nt328@cornell.edu.

Tonight’s Presentation

(recording @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm5FO2MfxRw)

And now for this month’s presentation.

Tonight’s speaker volunteered for Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky, Inc.,

during her last seven years working as an International B-757/B-767 Captain for UPS.

After retiring ten years ago, she founded Finger Lakes Raptor Center, Inc. in Lodi, NY,

where she cares for approximately 300 native wild birds a year.

This evening she will discuss:

•        Licensing requirements to become a Wildlife Rehabilitator.

•        What to do if you find a sick, injured, or orphaned wild bird.

•        Common reasons for wild birds to come into rehab.

•        How the rehabber cares for various species.

•        Some interesting cases seen at Finger Lakes Raptor Center.

Please join me in warmly welcoming Morgan Hapeman as she presents

Rehabilitating Wild Birds – A Professional’s Perspective