Past Programs

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Birds and bacteria: how gut microbes affect their avian hosts.

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Reflections: Hog Island

w/ Emma Mader & Melinda Harmle, 2024 Presque Isle Audubon Scholarship Recipients

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How to Atlas: Let's (Try to) Count All the Birds in PA!

‍Learn about the PA Bird Atlas (PBA3), a statewide inventory of birds breeding and overwintering in the state. Presenters are Northwest PA Regional Coordinator Scott Stoleson, Erie County Coordinator Katie Andersen, Warren County Coordinator Alejandra Lewandowski, Crawford County Coordinator Rob Hodgson, and Venango County Coordinator Brian Miller.PBA3 began on January 1, 2024 and will run through early 2029. This presentation will outline why we conduct atlases and how birders of ALL skill levels can contribute data.

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How Hooded Warblers live, and thrive, with cowbird nest parasitism‍

‍Ron Mumme is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Allegheny College and a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of South Florida in 1975 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984. Following postdoctoral work at Cornell University, he joined the Allegheny faculty in 1990, retiring in 2023. During his career he has done field research on Acorn Woodpeckers in California, FloridaScrub-Jays (in Florida, of course!), and Slate-throated Redstarts in Costa Rica. Since 2010 he has been working with Hooded Warblers at Hemlock Hill Field Station in Crawford County.

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Perched on the Edge: Birds of Newfoundland & Labrador

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Jared Clarke grew up on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and was introduced to the outdoors at a very young age, mostly by his grandfathers.  Always a nature enthusiast, he became interested in birds while working for a local conservation group. Jared soon became one of the most avid birders in the province. Despite his “official” training as a health researcher (Ph.D. Medicine), his love of nature and sharing it with others increasingly led him astray. He currently runs a small bird and nature tour business, called Bird•The•Rock, and routinely leads trips at home and abroad for various tour companies. You can follow his adventures at www.birdtherock.com

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'The Agony and Ecstasy:
2023 Piping Plover Season at Gull Point'

‍Join Erie Bird Observatory’s Mary Birdsong, who will introduce us to EBO’s mission and programs and provide a recap of the 2023 nesting season for endangered Great Lakes Piping Plovers and Common Terns at Gull Point, Presque Isle State Park. With the loss of our pioneer plover, 'Jerry,' and his mate 'Eve,' along with the arrival of new and mysterious plovers, egg rescues and a nest move, the season proved to be challenging, but still rewarding.

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'Bird-Friendly Habitat'

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Erin Reed Miller was born and raised in southeast Pennsylvania, exploring the wilderness in her backyard and beyond from a very young age. She earned her BS in Wildlife Conservation from the University of Delaware, with a Minor in Religious Studies, helping her to better understand the complex ways in which people from different walks of life around the world come to and appreciate nature. As an undergraduate, she began researching the connection between native plant species and insect communities in the lab of Dr. Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, and others, completing a thesis on how the scale of a nonnative plant invasion affects insects’ abilities to find their host plants. She continued this research on insect and native plant communities, earning an MS in Wildlife Ecology. This is also where she first found her love for teaching, as a Teaching Assistant for undergraduate Biology and Ecology courses. She has since served in AmeriCorps, and as an interpretive naturalist and environmental educator in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.Erin moved to Baltimore in 2011 and became an Educator and then the Education Manager at Patterson Park Audubon Center. There she has engaged with the public on greening projects and taught lessons for audiences ranging from two years old to adults, and helped to inform programs and projects at the national level, including National Audubon Society’s native plant database. With partners, she developed Audubon’s Bird-Friendly Habitat Recognition program for the state of Maryland and DC and has recognized over 300 residential, school, business, and community gardens. In 2021, she took on a new role of Bird-Friendly Communities Coordinator, where she works thoughtfully with communities and partners to increase bird-friendly habitat across the state in ways that are equitable and inclusive. In 2016, Erin was named the Tamar Chotzen Audubon Educator of the Year.

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'The Fabled Cahow: Saving a Lazarus Species from Extinction'

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​Kate Sutherland moved to Hatteras, NC in 2001 to work for Seabirding, a company that runs pelagic birding tours in the Gulf Stream and has the enigmatic Black-capped Petrel as their signature species! In 2016 she also began helping Bob Flood lead the Cahow Experience, a tour in Bermuda to see the highly endangered Bermuda Petrel. 2019 found her on her first research cruise from Woods Hole, MA as a seabird observer. Her niche is seabirds, so offshore is her habitat. She has recently earned her master’s in marine biology at University of North Carolina Wilmington investigating the foraging ecology of Black- capped Petrels by using stable isotopes in feathers from historical specimens. The Bermuda Petrel (Pterodroma cahow), locally known as the Cahow, was believed to be extirpated a short time after the islands were colonized, disappearing by the 1620s. ​As a boy, David Wingate found signs of these petrels around the island and there were a few records of live and freshly dead individuals thought to belong to other species. In 1951 Robert Cushman Murphy came to Bermuda in search of the Cahow, pulling one from a burrow as a young Wingate looked on.  A species that “returns from the dead” is dubbed a Lazarus species. The Cahow was presumed extinct for over 330 years before rediscovery.  But what do you do when you finally find a species after all of that time that has just 7 pairs left? All nesting on low-lying islets in one location on Bermuda? David Wingate dedicated his life to these birds at the moment he saw the first one held up by Murphy. His dedication, and that of Jeremy Madeiros, current Chief Conservation Officer of Bermuda, have turned the Cahow into a conservation success story like no other.  Those 7 pairs in 1951 have turned into 164 breeding pairs this season (2022-2023).

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“Birds of Costa Rica”

‍The PIAS October Program features Mike Fialkovich of Pittsburgh speaking about the birds of Costa Rica. Mike is an exceptional birder and volunteer. He currently serves as Vice President of the Three Rivers Birding Club in Pittsburgh, PA, field trip leader and Bird Reports editor. He was a board member (May 2011-May 2014), Vice President (May 2014-May 2016), President (May 2016-September 2019) and Past President (September 2019-September 2021) of the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology (PSO).  Mike is also a Seasonal Editor and Allegheny and Fayette county compiler for Pennsylvania Birds, the journal of the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology. He served on the Pennsylvania Ornithological Records Committee (PORC) from 2012-2021, and wrote the PORC annual reports from 2012-2021. He's also served as a Regional Coordinator and Author for the Second Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas. Mike participated in the Pennsylvania Herpetological Atlas, surveying two blocks in Westmoreland County, and running a frog calling survey in Butler County-from 1996-2002. An eBird reviewer for Allegheny, Fayette, and Westmoreland Counties, Mike was presented with the W.E. Clyde Todd Award by Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania in 2011.