Search Results for: birds and beers

Birds & Beers, November 27, 2019

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, Bats, and Building Collisions

Aug22

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Window strikes, or birds colliding with windows, is a big problem – not just in residential yards, but in urban downtowns where tall glass structures are a big obstacle to migrating birds (and bats too). Many birds migrate at night, and skyscrapers can cause a lot of bird mortality. You may have seen some of the disturbing photos of hundreds of dead birds of many species that are collected in Toronto’s downtown every year by the Fatal Light Awareness Project (FLAP). A similar effort is undertaken in Ottawa by Safe Wings Ottawa.

Toronto, unlike Calgary, is located on a major migratory flyway. So how big is the problem here, and what can be done to minimize the damage? This is what Kathleen Johnson has set out to discover, by creating the Calgary Migratory Species Response Team.

A Chipping Sparrow found in downtown Calgary by Kathleen in the spring during one of her preliminary checks for birds killed by window strikes.

Kathleen has done an amazing job of assembling a team of experts and setting up a detailed and well-prepared group of volunteers to begin surveys of Calgary’s downtown. The CMSRT will plot the locations of all birds and bats found, to learn where the problem areas are. The Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society is directly involved as well, so that any injured animals can be rescued.

This weekend there will be a two-part orientation session for anyone wishing to volunteer. The first part will be an information and training session at the Central Library downtown, and the second part will be in the field (downtown) early Sunday morning. See the event on Facebook here.

Please visit the group’s Facebook page to learn more about this effort. You can also follow them on Twitter (@CalgaryResponse). If you want to volunteer, email them at calgaryresponse[at]gmail.com.

Tonight, August 22nd, Kathleen will give a brief overview of the project at the Birds & Beers event (6-9 pm, at the Legion at 9202 Horton Road SW) and will have more information available for anyone interested in getting involved. This is a really exciting initiative and I hope everyone can get behind it and help out!

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.

Birds & Beers, May 2, 2019: The Raptor Allure of Windy Point

Apr21

The next Birds & Beers event in Calgary is on Thursday May 2, at the Horton Road Legion, from 6 to 9 pm. We will be in the big auditorium this month, and will have a special presentation: “The Raptor Allure of Windy Point” by Peter Roxborough.

Local birders are aware of the Golden Eagle migration monitoring that has been conducted for many years at Mount Lorette in Kananaskis country, but few are aware that Windy Point, in the Sheep River Valley west of Turner Valley, also offers fantastic raptor watching on migration. Peter Roxborough will do a presentation on this amazing birding spot.

The Legion is located at 9202 Horton Road SW. Everyone is welcome to attend Birds & Beers. As is usual when we have presentations, these begin after 7 pm. So come at 6 pm (or earlier since the kitchen will be busy), order a meal and have a drink, visit with your fellow birders, and then stay for the presentation. If you can’t make it early drop in later for the show.

Upcoming Birds & Beers events are scheduled for Thursday May 30 and Thursday June 27, at the same time and place. There will be presentations at both of these events too.

Birds Calgary

A birding blog for Calgary, Alberta and area

Search Results for: birds and beers

Birds, Bats, and Building Collisions

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