Members and guests are welcome to attend the Delaware County Bird Club meetings on the following 4th Monday evenings of the month. The 3 programs below conclude our programs for the 2008/09 season. If you want to receive the newsletter in its entirety please email me privately. Hope to see you Monday! Thanks to Jed Burtt for making the DCBC possible! Darlene Sillick DCBC program coordinator Upcoming Programs Evening programs of the Delaware County Bird Club are held in room 163 (lower level) of the Conrades Wetherell Science Center at OWU. They begin informally at 7:00 p.m. and the formal meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Refreshments and beverages are provided prior to the meeting. The Ohio Wesleyan University Museum of Zoology is open to guests and a sample of mystery birds from the museum is available to test your identification skills. Parking is available in the Selby Stadium parking lot across Henry Street from the Science Center or in the lot beside the Science Center on the campus drive. Feb. 23 Galápagos: Darwin’s monumental challenge Jed Burtt February 12, 2009 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin, author of “The Origin of Species”, a number of other influential books and arguably the greatest biologist who ever lived. As a young man he visited the Galápagos Archipelago and there, so the textbooks say, he conceived the concept of natural selection. While the islands played an important role in Darwin’s thinking, it is not the role described by most textbooks or ascribed to the islands by popular knowledge. Their role in Darwin’s intellectual development is far more subtle and far more interesting than the myth. Come to a special commemorative program in which Jed Burtt will present an alternative interpretation of the contribution of these islands to Darwin’s thinking, an interpretation that suggests an important role for the islands, but also supports Darwin’s remarkable ability to approach problems with an open mind. Join us for this special program Galápagos: Darwin’s monumental challenge. March 23 Peckerwoods in paradise Jack M. Stenger In early January Jack Stenger and long-time birding buddies Paul Wharton and Bill Stanley left Cincinnati for a week in the pine swamps of the Florida panhandle. They spent the next week in kayaks paddling through miles and miles of pine swamp listening and looking for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. What did they see? What did they hear? What evidence did they find? Jack will present an illustrated lecture based on his trip into the pine swamps of western Florida. Be sure to come for refreshments, conversation, and the usual dead bird quiz. April 27 Prothonotary Warbler Conservation at Alum Creek Dick Tuttle Since 1998, Dick Tuttle has offered special nest structures for Prothonotary Warblers in Delaware County. He will use slides and props to tell the story of four habitats and how the yellow swamp warblers are responding best to his “nest jars” along Alum Creek and Lake south of Kilbourne, Ohio where he monitors from a canoe. Some of the nests can be watched through spotting scopes from Hogback Road, a hot spot for photographing and watching nesting Osprey. An Osprey update will be part of the program. Tuttle is a retired middle school life science teacher. He is a forty-three-year veteran of active conservation and his nesting structures are used by eleven species. Through articles and programs, he promotes bluebird trails, nest box grids for Tree Swallows, roadside trails for American Kestrels, Osprey Platforms, and related education projects. He has recorded detailed data for all nests since 1968, an unbroken history for more than 37,000 native birds that have fledged from his offerings. Dick will also speak the following evening at the Columbus Audubon. Last week he was awarded a Conservation Award from Columbus Audubon for his many contributions in conservation and education. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]