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• Reflections from a bird bath: what game cameras can teach us about bird ecology

  • When
    8 Sep 2025
  •  
    6:30 PM
  • Location
    Five Rivers EEC and Zoom

  Speaker: Jim Ferrari

  Water is profoundly important for birds, not only for drinking, but also for feather maintenance. But surprisingly little is known about how often birds bathe or drink, and whether this varies with the seasons or the time of day. What is the social behavior of birds at water sources – do they avoid each other, or do they get along? And does the attraction of birds to water also mean that bird baths are focal points for deposition of seeds from fruits that birds have recently eaten? This presentation will describe the findings from a multi-year project in Georgia in which a game camera was used to monitor bird behavior and seed deposition to a water bath. It turns out that some amazing ecological interactions are happening every day at your backyard bird bath!

  Jim Ferrari is a Professor and Chair of Biology at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, where he has taught Biology for more than 25 years. His Ph.D. is in Ecology from the University of Minnesota, and his undergraduate Biology degree is from Middlebury College, Vermont.

  At Wesleyan, Jim teaches Ecology, Evolution, Conservation Biology, Field Biology, and related courses. He is an accomplished birder and is past-president of both the Ocmulgee Audubon Society (Macon, Georgia) and the Georgia Ornithological Society (GOS); in addition, he is the editor of The Oriole, the scientific journal of GOS. 

  Jim has studied vultures, fruit-eating birds, seed dispersal by birds, nocturnal flight calls, and the song structure of Bachman’s Sparrows. His book on The Ecology of Fruit-Eating Birds in Georgia, with co-author Jerry Payne, was published by the Georgia Ornithological Society in 2009. Jim has a number of other scientific publications, including three species accounts in the Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia, and his nature essays have appeared in Bird Watcher’s Digest. 

  
  

  
  

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• Bird Parasitism - A fight in the feathers: the impacts of ectoparasites on birds, and the adaptations birds use to combat their feather-dwelling parasites

  • When
    6 Oct 2025
  •  
    6:30 PM
  • Location
    Five Rivers EEC and Zoom

  Speaker: Dr. Chris Harbison of Siena College

  Title: A fight in the feathers: the impacts of ectoparasites on birds, and the adaptations birds use to combat their feather-dwelling parasites

  Chances are the bird you saw on your last birding adventure was not alone; most birds also host a community of parasite species that live in their bodies and on the plumage.  While these tiny parasites are easy to overlook, they have an oversized impact on a bird’s behavior and can drive changes in bird ecology and evolution as well.  In this presentation, we will explore this antagonistic dynamic and use birds and their parasites to help understand larger questions about host-parasite coevolution.  For example, why are some parasites specific to one bird species, while others are generalists?  Why are some parasites more virulent than others?  What strategies do parasites use to better attack hosts and what adaptations have birds evolved to fight back?  Chris Harbison’s research focuses on these coevolutionary questions using a study system consisting of birds and the feather-feeding ectoparasites that live within their plumage.  This presentation will review the nature of this host-parasite dynamic and the many ways birds and parasites have have adapted to one another.

  Chris Harbison has been teaching biology at Siena University (formerly Siena College) since 2008 and additionally taught biology at Carleton College in Minnesota where he also completed his undergraduate degree.  Chris received his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Utah where he began his studies of bird ectoparasites.  At Siena, Chris teaches Ornithology, Principles of Evolution, General Biology and other related courses.  He has written numerous scientific publications in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as in parasitology and ornithology journals.  He also regularly presents his work at national and international conferences as well as in academic and public settings.

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• Growing the Next Generation of Birders

  • When
    3 Nov 2025
  •  
    6:30 PM
  • Location
    Five Rivers EEC and Zoom

  Speaker: George "Schoolyard Naturalist" Steele
  

  This program is about adults working with children and families with children. George will share stories of his experiences of birding with kids, tips on working with youth, thoughts on what individuals and clubs might do to bring birding to children.

  Professional educator George Steele has been teaching about nature for more than 55 years, since his start as a 16 year old nature counselor in a Boy Scout Camp. George earned his BS in Forest Biology from SUNY College of ESF, and is past director of the NYSDEC Environmental Education Camp Program. He spent two years working in the NYSDEC Endangered Species Unit primarily with the Bald Eagle Release Program. Since 1992, he has been an independent environmental educator.  

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• Birding Argentina

  • When
    1 Dec 2025
  •  
    6:30 PM
  • Location
    Five Rivers EEC and Zoom

  Holiday party and program - Birding Argentina

  Speaker: Gregg Recer

  Argentina is a surprisingly big country, the second-largest by area in South America, stretching nearly 4000 km from the northern border with Bolivia to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. Within that span a huge variety of habitats occur including tropical forest and wetlands, the arid Altiplano, Andean foothills and highlands, Pampas grasslands, flat and windy Patagonia, about 1500 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline, and glacier-topped peaks surrounding Southern Beech forest at the tip of continent. With all that variety comes a very big variety of birds -- toucans, hummingbirds, rheas, penguins, flamingoes, tubenoses, parrots, and a tremendous range of furnariids, just to mention a few. Gregg Recer and Cathy Graichen visited the country briefly in 2018, and on two birding tours in 2024 that covered the entire length of the country. This talk will share their experiences throughout the incredibly birdy and scenic country.

  Gregg Recer is a former HMBC president. He and his wife, Cathy Graichen, have been HMBC members since 1989 and have been focused on world birding for over 20 years.  

  
  

  

  Beagle Channel lighthouse

  
  

  

  James' Flamingo

  
  

  

  Jujuy Province scenery

  
  

  

  Dolphin Gull

  
  

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