where natural history meets art
Saturday October 27 • 8:00–9:30 a.m.
Join experienced birders on the last Saturday of every month for the monthly bird monitoring walk. Discover more of the Museum’s forest and meadows! Please bring binoculars.
Free • Adults and older children have the most fun
Optional: pre-register by emailing museum@birdsofvermont.org or calling (802) 434-2167.
Potluck Birding: Open Mike for Birders
Saturday, October 27 • 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
An experimental evening of tasty food and delightful birds from you. Get inspired for your winter birding vacation.
Up to 15 images per presenter pre-arranged on a flash drive or CD. We have Picasa and an old version of Powerpoint.
Please sign up for a presenting time-slot with the Museum so we can coordinate hard- and software!
Free for participants; donations welcome.
The Big Sit!
Sunday, October 14 • Dawn–Dusk
How many birds can we perceive from a 17-foot diameter circle? Can we beat last year’s record? Join Team Loonatics at the Birds of Vermont Museum and find out.
Snacks and coffee provided for sitters. Please bring your own binoculars.
For much more info, see http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/connect/bigsit/about.php or call the Museum at (802) 434-2167.
A nice young couple visited yesterday with their two year old son who is really into birds (and bears). The dad, asked about bird Apps. Here’s a combined reply from our Museum Educator and Executive Director!
Lots of bird ID apps for adults. They vary on ID tips, recordings, ability to keep lists, etc. I like the Audubon Guides, but know others who like iBirdPro, Sibley Guide, and Peterson guides. For example, a short list of bird Apps recommended to us by two of our favorite, fervent birders:
- For ease of use, they recommend the iBird Pro with about 924 species, priced ~ $24
- Peterson Birds of North America offers 800 species (back in the early summer, the App was on sale for $0.99, usually $14.95)
- Finally, Peterson Feeder Birds with 160 species was described as an App available for free.
To find bird related apps for my son (age 3), I just typed into the search fields variations of “bird”, “quiz”, “toddler”, etc. I like (and so does my son ) the Toddler Teaser apps. They have apps to help kids recognize letters, numbers, and animals (including birds).
The choices are extensive!
Added later: BirdDiva also recommends the Audubon Guides (from Green Mountain Digital)
Panama boasts nearly 1,000 different bird species and the largest intact tropical rainforest in Central America, but as a birding destination it still lacks the fame of its neighbor Costa Rica.
Please join us for a photographic tour of the incredible diversity of birdlife Panama has to offer—from the hummingbirds and toucans of the national forests along the Panama Canal to the tanagers and trogons of the coffee-growing region in the northwest to the macaws and manakins of the roadless south-eastern wilderness that is the Darien.
Presented by Professors Kimberly Sultze and Jon Hyde.
This lecture is oart of the Lucille Greenough Enrichment Series.
Doors open at 6:30p.m. for wine and cheese; slide lecture begins at 7:00p.m.
Guest post from Dr. Stewart Kirkaldy, Museum Volunteer
Every once in a while one has an experience that is profoundly moving. This happened to me recently on International Migratory Bird Day at the Birds of Vermont Museum where I was working at the viewing window. A young couple came in with three children, the eldest of whom was a serious birder. She was 10 years old or less but had a “life list” of fifty-eight on arrival. Very soon she saw her first Hummingbird to which she responded with incredible vocal enthusiasm, jumping up and down and rushing across the room to give her father the news. (She added two new species to her list that afternoon.) Her interest and enthusiasm was evident all day. She was an inspiration and rejuvenated hope in my heart for the future of humanity.
The realization dawned on me that she is at one end of the spectrum of human activity and, sadly, too many are at the other end as exemplified by Big Oil Company Executives whose actions and indifference led to the recent catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But what she left me with was the hope well expressed in a hymn that ends “… when man’s crude acts deface no more / the handiwork of God.”
