Birds & Beers Update

Aug28

The monthly Birds and Beers socials have not been held since the start of the pandemic. Many local birders are hoping we can resume these events and the presentations soon. I’m sure quite a few birders are vaccinated and keep small cohorts. Joan Walker (who does the majority of the organization of these events) and I have discussed it, and we decided that the situation with the spread of the Delta variant is too uncertain to have such gatherings right now. I certainly would not be comfortable attending since I am in contact with many people every day. I don’t want to pass the virus on to others. So we will have a “wait and see” attitude for now.

Redhead, Bridlewood Pond, May 2021. Photo by Bob Lefebvre

Joan has looked into planning events in the next few months. There are a few presentations ready to go. However, there are some complications. Our regular meeting-place is the Horton Road Legion. Of course the pandemic has been a difficult time for businesses like the Legion. They were closed for a while, and are currently only open a few days each week. When they re-opened, all the meeting rooms booked up completely until Christmas. So we are considering possibly re-starting in January.

Another issue is that the Legion will now have to charge for the use of the room. It is a minimal amount, but we would have to pass the cost on to the attendees.

There is the possibility of finding other venues but it would be very difficult to find another one that serves meals and drinks, can accommodate presentations of up to 100 people, and is cheap or free.

We would like to have some feedback on this. Should we plan to resume in the new year (assuming it is safe to do so) at the regular location? Would you be willing to pay a small amount (no more than two or three dollars per person; probably less) to attend? Would you like to try another venue and do you have any suggestions for an alternate location?

If you are a regular Birds & Beers attendee and you have thoughts on this, please email me at wbird7[at]gmail.com. -Bob Lefebvre

Birds & Beers, March 5, 2020

Feb24

We were unable to get our usual late-February date for Birds & Beers, so we will be meeting next on Thursday March 5th.

Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch#285,

9202 Horton Road SW.

Thursday March 5, 2020, 6:00-9:00 pm.

Dan Edwards will be presenting “Birds of the Great Ocean Walk,” a birding-oriented travelogue of his trip hiking the Great Ocean Walk in southern Australia last October. The presentation will begin at about 7:15 pm.

Everyone is welcome to attend Birds & Beers, and there is no charge. We will meet in the big ballroom at the Legion. Food and drinks are available at reasonable prices, and children are welcome if accompanied by an adult. Come early if you want to avoid the lineup at the kitchen.

Birds & Beers, January 23, 2020

Jan18

The next Birds & Birds social get-together will be held this Thursday, January 23, 2020. Gavin McKinnon will give a presentation, featuring photographs like the one below, on his Big Year in 2019. Gavin’s goal was to record over 300 species in Alberta in the calendar year.

Evening Grosbeak, photographed in 2019 by Gavin McKinnon.

Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch#285,

9202 Horton Road SW.

Thursday January 23, 2020, 6:00-9:00 pm

See you there!

Birds & Beers, November 27, 2019

Nov20

The next Birds & Birds social get-together will be held on Wednesday November 27, from 6 to 9 pm, at the usual location:

Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch#285,

9202 Horton Road SW.

Wednesday November 27, 2019, 6:00-9:00 pm

Note that this is a Wednesday, not our our usual Thursday.

We are very pleased to have Chip Scialfa do a presentation at this meeting. He will speak on “Birding With Uncertainty: Psychology and Errors in Decision-Making.”

Avid birders are keen to add to their lists and often this means identifying birds that are uncommon and easily confused with other species. What are some of the psychological errors that we make when birding under uncertainty and how can they be minimized or avoided? Chip Scialfa, an experimental psychologist and keen birder, will talk about these issues in what will likely be a “mind-bending” presentation.

Chip is a very animated and entertaining speaker, so this promises to be a fun and informative talk. Some of you may have attended a version of this presentation at Nature Calgary’s Bird Study Group a few years ago, but Chip has modified and updated the talk considerably.

As usual, everyone is welcome to attend and there is no charge. We will meet in the big ballroom at the Legion. Food and drinks are available at reasonable prices, and children are welcome if accompanied by an adult. Come early if you want to avoid the lineup at the kitchen. The presentation will begin at about 7:15 so if you can’t make it at six pm, come later.

A few local photographers will have calendars with their bird and nature photos available for sale for the Christmas season, so bring cash! These usually sell for $20 for a full-size calendar.

See you there!

Birds & Beers, October 31, 2019

Oct25

The next Birds & Birds social get-together will be held on Thursday October 31, from 6 to 9 pm, at the usual location:

Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch#285,

9202 Horton Road SW.

Thursday October 31, 2019, 6:00-9:00 pm

Black-capped Chickadee, Bebo Grove, October 26, 2015. Photo by Tony LePrieur.

We will meet in the large auditorium which is to the right after you enter the Legion. Everyone is welcome to attend (including children if accompanied by an adult), and food and drinks are available.

This month, rather than have a presentation, will be having a special “Popcorn and Video” night! We will be showing a video about birds, and attendees have permission to bring their own popped popcorn and share it with their table.

The Life of Birds Hosted by David Attenborough. Episode 1: TO FLY OR NOT TO FLY (Approx. 50 minutes).The history of birds, from the first flying reptiles to today’s consummate navigators. From giant flightless birds to modern ostriches and emus, see how birds have made a claim to populate not only the air but also the land. (Note: this is part of a 10 episode (3 DVD set) series by BBC Video).

The video will begin after 7 pm so everyone will have time to eat and socialize beforehand. If you are unable to arrive early, feel free to just come for the movie. It should be very interesting, and even if you’ve seen it before, it should spark some good conversations afterwards. See you there.

Future Birds & Beers meetings are as follows:

Wednesday November 27, 2019 (Note the out-of-range day of the week, a Wednesday rather than a Thursday). Chip Scialfa will do a presentation on “Problems in decision-making in field identification.”

Thursday January 23, 2020

Thursday March 5, 2020

Thursday April 2, 2020

Thursday May 7, 2020

Thursday June 25, 2020

There! Your social life (or mine, anyway) is set for the next eight months. All of the above meetings will be in in the big auditorium and we plan to have presentations, except for at the April 2nd meeting, which is in the smaller dining rooms. We may do a quiz or have a discussion of some kind at that one. Mark your calendars!

Birds & Beers, August 22, 2019

Aug17

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Birds & Beers will kick off the fall season with a meeting this Thursday, August 22.

Royal Canadian Legion, Centennial Calgary Branch#285,

9202 Horton Road SW.

Thursday August 22, 2019, 6:00-9:00 pm

Birds & Beers is a casual social get-together that is free and open to everyone. Children may attend if accompanied by an adult. Food and drinks are available at reasonable prices.

We will meet in the large auditorium which is to the right after you enter the Legion. After 7 pm, there will be a special presentation by Gus Yaki on colour abnormalities in birds.

Common Grackle, Calgary, September 17, 2010.
Photo by Bob Lefebvre

Gus will show photos from the Calgary region of many birds with unusual markings. Most birders are aware of terms like albinism, leucism, and melanism, but there are actually six types of colour abnormalities, and many of these terms are often poorly understood and improperly used.

Gus Yaki — Gus with a normally-plumaged but injured Ring-billed Gull.

If you can’t arrive by 6 pm come anytime after that. The presentation will begin by about 7:15. You can also come early if you want – long-time attendees have learned that this is a good way to avoid the lineups at the grill.

We have booked the dates for upcoming Birds & Beers as follows, so mark these dates in your calendars. (Note the unusual Wednesday date in November.)

Thursday October 3

Thursday October 31

Wednesday November 27

All of these will be in the same location, in the big auditorium at the Horton Road Legion. We plan to have presentations but these aren’t finalized yet.

Here is an update on the projector used for presentations. When we started Birds & Beers it was purely a social event, and we had no plans to do presentations. However, Gus suggested we add short talks after the social part of the evening, and after doing this a few times if soon became clear that people really enjoyed this part of the evening. At first we borrowed the Legion’s projector, but this was not always available. Then we borrowed Nature Calgary’s, but they no longer have one as they don’t need it in their new location. So we have been borrowing one from one of our regular attendees, but we felt that if we are going to continue to have presentations we should have our own system.

We brought this topic up at the May Birds & Beers, and people were very enthusiastic, and donated generously towards purchasing our own projector. We collected more money at the June meeting, and we now have $528. This is just about enough to cover the cost of the system we are looking at. We may need about $90 more to purchase a replacement bulb, so we may ask for one more round of (optional!) donations. Then we should have our projector ready for the meeting on October 3.

A big thanks to Joan and Wayne Walker for spearheading the projector search (and for booking the Legion, and for doing almost everything relating to Birds & Beers!), to Dave Russum for lending us his projector for several meetings, and to Dan Arndt for providing his technical expertise in the projector search.

See you on Thursday!

Birds & Beers Facebook page.