RTPIOC Meeting Tonight
Looking for some plans this evening? Please join the Roger Tory Peterson Institute Ornithological Club and speaker Dr. Gerald Rising! Current Agenda When: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 7:00PM Announcements: RTPI and JAS activities Program: The Roger Tory Peterson Institute Ornithological Club will meet on Wednesday, October 26, 2016, at 7 pm in the meeting room as usual. This meeting will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of RTPIOC. Our speaker will be Dr. Gerald Rising, a nationally recognized educator and writer. He is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at the...
Read MoreInjured Rusty Blackbird
I am a huge fan of the Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus), something you may have learned by reading my posts over the last few years here at RTPI. Beyond fandom I am also a member of the International Rusty Blackbird Working Group and help to coordinate spring migration blitzes to record the species with birders and the public to learn more about vital aspects of their biology in an attempt to save one of the fastest declining birds on the continent. October is a great time to spot them heading south for the winter in wooded wetlands, marshes, ponds and agricultural areas. They may be...
Read MoreOur Changing Forests with Professor Jonathan Titus (SUNY Fredonia)
Dr. Jonathan Titus – professor of biology, botany and ecology at SUNY Fredonia – will deliver a program at RTPI on Wednesday, November 9th at 7pm summarizing his current research addressing many aspects of the rapid changes underway in forests throughout our area. “Our forests are changing very fast due to non-native invasive plant species, tree diseases (beech bark disease, hemlock wooly adelgid and emerald ash borer), deer overpopulation and climate change,” Dr. Titus explained, “so I am tracking tree growth and understory vegetation across the county to understand the change...
Read MoreRTPI’s 2016-2021 Action Plan
As part of our ongoing strategic planning efforts, RTPI is excited to release a 5-year action plan describing the mission-driven programming that we are developing in all three of our focal areas: Art, Education and Conservation. This Action Plan outlines how the synergy between these focal areas strengthens the important work that Roger Tory Peterson started, and that RTPI now continues. Like Dr. Peterson, our work transcends political and other boundaries, and RTPI operates at different geographic levels. Our Action Plan 2016-2021 indicates how RTPI intends to expand programming within our...
Read MoreNelson’s Sparrow
The October sparrow push continues! A huge flight of nocturnal and diurnal migrant birds have moved through the Northeast region in the wake of last weekend’s cold front, and that timing was about as good as it gets for sparrow lovers. This morning I was wandering around Stratford Point doing some surveying with my dog Zach and recording whatever would pop out of dozens and dozens of songbirds present. He is a large sheltie, and his oversized fox look is very helpful. He assists in hazing waterfowl out of the historic shot fall zone, and in the uplands little birds usually flush then...
Read MoreHurricane Matthew & Migration
First of all, my thoughts are with all who were or are experiencing the very worst of Hurricane Matthew, a deadly tropical cyclone that has been ravaging areas from Haiti to Cuba, the Bahamas, and now the United States. I, like you undoubtedly, know people who took some of the heavy blows from the storm in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. It proved to be a very difficult forecast which only exacerbated fears, and as heavy rain falls right now in the Mid-Atlantic and New England before the post-tropical cyclone heads out to sea instead of taking that long-discussed loop,...
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