Featuring a presentation on the birds of Indonesia
From January through June 2024 we will be meeting monthly at the Horton Road Legion in Calgary for a social get-together and birding presentation. Everyone is welcome to attend these events, have some food and drinks, and enjoy a birding talk from one of our many local volunteers.
The first Birds & Beers of 2024 will be on Thursday January 11. We meet in the big ballroom at the Legion, at 9202 Horton Road SW in Calgary. The doors open at 5 pm. At about 7 pm there will be a presentation by Bob and Dianne Leonhardt on their recent trip to see the birds and wildlife of Indonesia.
Presentation Description by the Leonhardts:
Indonesia is the fourteenth largest country in the world by area. It consists of over 17,000 islands. By population it is the fourth largest country in the world with approximately 279 million people. This may seem like an odd choice for a birding tour, however, Indonesia also contains approximately 1800 species of birds, including 786 endemics. So in September of 2023 we flew from Calgary to Vancouver to Tokyo and on to Jakarta to participate in a 20 day birding tour with Naturalist Journeys. On this tour we visited five islands, including Sumatra, Java, Bali, Flores and Komodo. We experienced several different types of environments and ended up seeing approximately 270 species of birds, the majority of which were lifers for us. Some of the most notable species were the Javan Trogon, the Javan Banded Pitta, the Bali Myna, Red and Green Jungle Fowl, and Milky Storks. There were many more, some of which will be shown in this presentation. A final highlight of the tour was a trip to Komodo National Park on Komodo Island to see the infamous Komodo Dragons.
Here are the dates for the upcoming 2024 Birds & Beers events:
Thursday January 11.
Thursday February 8.
Thursday March 14.
Thursday April 11.
Thursday May 9.
Thursday June 13.
July and August is a summer break, and Birds & Beers will resume in September.
We have been attending Birds & Beers for a few years, and it has gotten increasingly cramped and getting to a seat means bumping into other attendees already seated! The configuration of the tables and the way they are set up (squished together) makes for an uncomfortable environment.
The Legion does try to accommodate us but the service is slow and mixed up. Perhaps have attendees order a drink at the bar on their way in and then proceed to the meeting room with their refreshment. Then give their food order to the chefs and receive a number on a placard which they place in front of themselves in the meeting room for the waitress to deliver the order.
Originally we used to have the large meeting room at the front and it was much more roomy but we are now sentenced to the back.
We have decided although we gain much enjoyment from the programs but feel the way they are now we cannot continue to attend.
Since September 2023 we have always had the large ballroom where there is plenty of room and better sightlines for the presentation. I agree that it was challenging in the back rooms but we will only book the ballroom from now on. It was unavailable to us for a couple of years there. Hope you come back! The next Birds & Beers is February 8, 2024.