Events
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Online Birding: Improving Habitat for Central Valley Waterbirds
Zoom Event CA, United StatesImproving Habitat for Central Valley Waterbirds
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
7 PM to 8:30 PM
With Khara Strum
Sign up for the Zoom Webinar HEREDid you know that over 50 percent of the potential habitat for migratory waterbirds in the Central Valley is also agricultural land? Farm fields might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of waterbirds, but here in California farmland is essential to supporting the millions of waterbirds that call the Central Valley home. Join Khara Strum for a tour of some of the ways Audubon California is working with farmers and private landowners to support migratory waterbirds in the Central Valley.
Khara Strum is a Conservation Project Manager for Audubon California. For the last decade, Khara has worked with agricultural industry groups, private landowners, and government agencies to increase the habitat value of farmland for birds and other wildlife in the Central Valley of California.
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Feathers and Flight: A Journey to the New World Tropics
Zoom Event CA, United StatesSpeaker: Benjamin Jacobs-Schwartz
Host: Doug Waterman
Date: November 12, 2020
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PMDescription: International Bird guide, naturalist and photographer, Benny Jacobs-Schwartz will share his dazzling bird photos, captivating videos, and animated story-telling to bring a slice of the tropics to your screen!
Delving into topics of migration, tropical speciation, and bio-diversity, this media rich journey will share some of the fascinating and unique birds that inhabit the new-world tropics. Designed to both educate and entertain, this presentation will certainly leave you with a deeper understanding of tropical ecology, and knowledge about where some of our backyard birds spend their winters!
Benny Isaac Jacobs-Schwartz owns and operates a bird guiding business and lifestyle brand called BIRDS by BIJS (pronounced Bee-jus). Working seasonally as a naturalist guide, expedition trip leader, and international bird guide, Benny works in a variety of locations. Most recently bringing him to such exotic places like coastal Alaska, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Ecuadorian cloud forest.
Seasonally Benny or BIJS, is based in Los Angeles, where he leads public and private birding adventures to urban hotspots. He is also a passionate photographer, specializing in birds. He uses his impressive collection of content to leverage his prolific social media presence. Benny hopes his love of the natural world will inspire others to conserve the open spaces around them and look up more often from their phones!
CLICK HERE to join the Zoom Speaker Series Event. A Q&A will follow the presentation. To ask a question use the Chat feature on Zoom.
Please contact for questions regarding Marin Audubon's Speaker Series events.
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Sandhill Crane Populations in California’s Central Valley
Zoom Event CA, United StatesWednesday, December 2, 2020
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
With Gary Ivey, Ph.D.
CLICK HERE to register for the Zoom EventWhile only occasionally seen in Marin, both breeding and wintering Sandhill Cranes can be found in greater abundance in California’s Central Valley and the broader Pacific Flyway. All things Sandhill Crane related will be covered in this program: some history, their status, their life history, migration routes, and breeding areas of the three subspecies that use our state. Dr. Ivey will also discuss where and when you can enjoy them during their winter season.
Dr. Ivey is an undisputed expert who has concentrated his work for over 35 years on waterbirds, waterfowl, and wetland conservation. Sandhill Cranes were the focus of both his Master’s Thesis and Ph.D. He currently serves as a Research Associate with the International Crane Foundation (Saving cranes and the places where cranes dance!) and works to further conservation of cranes, Trumpeter Swans, and other waterbirds in Western North America.
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Refuge – a Film from Gray Lodge Wildlife Area
Zoom Event CA, United StatesDecember 9, 2020
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
With Director Mark Lipman
CLICK HERE to register for the Zoom EventWe invite you to immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of this dawn-to-dusk portrait of the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area in Gridley. When he first visited Gray Lodge in 2011, Director Mark Lipman was not a birder but was deeply touched by the beauty of the place and the symphony of bird sounds. On the night of our program, Mark will briefly introduce his film and be available for the Q&A session afterwards.
Mark created this beautiful film and sound recording over a period of three winters. His program is vastly different from our previous webinars and does not offer a classroom-type-learning presentation. Rather it offers an aesthetic, meditative experience that we hope you will enjoy as you head into the busy holiday season.
This forty-five minute film is intentionally slow paced with no talking, although we may have a birding expert quietly identify the varied birds as they appear on the screen CLICK HERE access a Bird List in advance of the program. Then you can bird your way through the film! We recommend that you view this film on your largest available screen as Mark has created a three-channel video with surround sound, and viewing would be optimum on a large screen.
Mark has worked as a documentary filmmaker for over thirty-five years, exploring a wide range of subjects from domestic violence to human sexuality to affordable housing and community organizing. His films have been broadcast nationally on public television and won numerous awards. Refuge is his first foray into video installations and the natural world.
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When Waterbirds are in Crisis
CA, United StatesSpeaker: JD Bergeron
Host: Doug Waterman
Date: December 10, 2020
Start time: 7:30 PM
End Time: 9:30 PM
CLICK HERE to register for the Zoom Speaker Series Event. A Q&A will follow the presentation. To ask a question use the Chat feature on Zoom.
Description:
In 1971 after 800,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the bay, concerned individuals led by a registered nurse named Alice Berkner jumped into action, bringing International Bird Rescue to life. We have always had to pave a road where there is none. Staff and volunteers work with tenacity alongside clients, partners, and the public to find solutions. Today, we research best practices at our crisis response hospitals in California and Alaska and share them worldwide. Our mission is to inspire people to act toward balance with the natural world by rescuing waterbirds in crisis. We dream of a world in which every person, every day, takes action to protect the natural home of wildlife and ourselves.We rescue thousands of Bay Area birds every year and provide high quality care for them in our Northern California wildlife center in Fairfield.
JD Bergeron is fascinated by birds. After 20 years of non-profit leadership, JD found a way to bring his passion together with his work experience to become the Executive Director of International Bird Rescue, a nonprofit founded during a major oil spill to help affected wildlife. An unconventional problem solver, JD has redirected Bird Rescue’s impressive track record of working over 230 oil spills to take on the many challenges wild waterbirds face today. JD leads by example, modeling qualities of integrity, mindfulness, and wonder for his dedicated team.
JD thrives on finding innovative ways to inspire others to take action. Moved by his time in the Peace Corps, the nonprofit startup Kiva, and his international travels, he founded Chooda, a volunteer-run incubator with the mission to help inspire change through outdoor adventures that engage individuals with world challenges.
A lifelong lover of nature, JD retreats to the outdoors to gain perspective and to soothe the soul. He counts his month among a million albatrosses on Midway Atoll as the experience of a lifetime. After the magic of Midway, JD returned to Bird Rescue with a renewed passion and commitment to protect the natural home of wildlife and ourselves. He lives with his husband and rescue dog Cosmo in Martinez, CA. His interests include spirituality, drawing, writing, cycling, and volunteering as a Burning Man Ranger.
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Changes in Bird Status in the Central Valley
Zoom Event CA, United StatesSpeaker: John Sterling
Host: Doug Waterman
Date: January 14, 2021
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PMCLICK HERE to register for the Zoom Speaker Series Event. A Q&A will follow the presentation. To ask a question use the Chat feature on Zoom.
John will discuss the changes in our knowledge of bird distribution and populations in the Central Valley since the publication of Grinnell and Miller’s book on California birds in the 1940s. Loss of habitats, creation of new habitats, reduction of ranges, invasions of new species and other topics will be explored as we reconcile the fact that more species are detected now than prior to the book’s publication.
John is a professional ornithologist and has worked for the Smithsonian Institution, US Forest Service research stations, HT Harvey & Associates, Arizona and Oregon state universities among other organizations since 1981. John has traveled extensively throughout California learning about local bird distribution and is an authority on that state’s avifauna. In 2015 he set the California's new big year record with 501 species and has many big day records as well. John currently has his own company, Sterling Wildlife Biology (www.sterlingbirds.com), specializing in tours, birding classes, research and environmental consulting for The Nature Conservancy, National Audubon’s International Alliance Program, CA Dept. of Water Resources among other organizations.
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Marin’s Breeding Birds (How We Know What We Know)
Zoom Event CA, United StatesWednesday, January 20, 2021
7 PM to 8:30 PM
With Dr. Dave DeSante
Sign up for the Zoom Webinar HEREBy way of welcoming the new re-study of the Marin County Breeding Bird Atlas, Dave DeSante offers his reflections on the various sources of evidence we have for the birds who nest here. He’ll talk about the importance of the study of avian populations, the Breeding Bird Survey sponsored by the US Geological Survey, and the MAPS bird banding program organized by the Institute for Bird Populations. An engaging raconteur, Dave will offer a rare-bird’s-eye-view that will interest birders of all levels.
Dr David F. DeSante received his PhD from Stanford University in 1973 with a ground-breaking study of ‘misorientation’ in bird migration. Over the course of a long career, he has been interested in population trends and phenology in North American birds. In 1989, he founded the Institute for Bird Populations, a non-profit devoted to the conservation of North American birds. He is widely published, writing both for popular and scholarly audiences. He resides in Forest Knolls.
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New Breeding Bird Atlas
CA, United StatesWednesday, January 27, 2021
7 PM to 8:30 PM
With Atlas Coordinator Juan Garcia
Sign up for the Zoom Webinar HEREAs of this month, the Marin Audubon Society is launching its new breeding bird atlas project. Project leader Juan García will tell us how we got here – and where we’re headed. He’ll review the history of the original project (resulting in the first atlas, published in 1993), describe the goals of the new atlas, and discuss how the volunteers will gather and store data. Listeners will not only learn how the current project is organized but get a preview of key innovations that will be introduced in the new study.
Juan F. García is an independent contractor serving as overall Atlas Coordinator. He grew up on the coastal bend of south Texas, where he began studying birds. A former college professor, he has conducted field surveys for a wide variety of non-profits involved in avian conservation. He has been a Bay Area resident for many years, living presently in Point Reyes Station.
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GIS in Conservation
CA, United StatesWednesday, February 3, 2021
4 PM to 5:30 PM - NOTE EARLIER STARTING TIME
With William Wiskes
Sign up for the Zoom Webinar HERELike every atlas project, the Marin County Breeding Bird Atlas will feature, at its core, a series of maps that track the distribution of our nesting birds. Join us for a fascinating exploration of high-tech map-making with William Wiskes. William will talk about the pleasures and pains of creating maps for a modern breeding bird atlas. He will focus especially on three classes of maps that he is developing for the Marin County BBA project: conventional paper (printable) maps, an interactive web-map, and a phone-based app that volunteers can use in the field.
William Wiskes, GIS Specialist, is the staff cartographer of the new Marin County Breeding Bird Atlas. He is currently a master’s degree candidate at San Francisco State University. An excellent field ornithologist, William has worked on numerous projects in conservation biology, including, among others, field studies of raptors, Pacific Wren, and Black Rail.
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Marin’s Booming Bird Populations: Three-quarters of a Century of Avifaunal Expansion
Zoom Event CA, United StatesSpeaker: Roger Harris
Host: Doug Waterman
Date: February 11, 2021
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Please sign up HEREMany of our common Marin County birds, whose abundance we now take for granted, were rare or absent only three-quarters of a century ago. Since the beginning of the Southern Marin Christmas Bird County in the 1970s, for instance, Red-shouldered Hawk detections have increased tenfold. Habitat restoration and maturation, conservation efforts, and cultural changes in the behavior of individual bird species have all contributed to shifting – and, for Marin, generally increasing – bird populations.
Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, and Great Blue Herons, which had been extirpated from the Bay Area, returned in the mid-twentieth century. Black-necked Stilts were first recorded nesting in our marshes in the mid-1960s, followed by American Avocets in 1984. In 1996, Forster’s Terns nested in Corte Madera Shorebird Marsh for the first time in Marin County.
The dean of California ornithology, Joseph Grinnell, wrote in 1915 that the Ridgway’s Rail “seems destined to early extinction.” The rail is the logo bird of the Marin Audubon Society and conservation advocacy efforts have made Grinnell’s prediction of a century ago at least premature.
Our speaker, Roger Harris, will unpack the evolving dynamics of avifaunal population change using data from Christmas Bird Counts, the Marin County Breeding Bird Atlas, and a variety of other sources. Roger is a Certified Wildlife Biologist and a longtime member of the Marin Audubon Society. Once the pandemic resolves, he hopes to return to leading international eco-tours for the Oceanic Society.
Photo courtesy of Roger Harris