Have you ever wanted to know how to keep lists or how to plan a Big Year? Tuesday, September 23rd, you can learn what birders are thinking about as they go in quest of becoming an elite member of the over 700 ABA club and a possible ABA Big Year record. Columbus Audubon and Grange Insurance Audubon Club Members and guests are welcome to join us next Tuesday evening. We hope to see you before 7pm for a fun evening filled with lots of activities and social time for birders and nature lovers. In 2013 Boston birder Neil Hayward suffered a devastating bout of the Big Year. The temporary insanity resulted in almost 250,000 miles of travel, taking him to the remote corners of this continent: Barrow in the frozen north; the Dry Tortugas, dangling off the Florida Keys to the south; Newfoundland, poking out to the east; and tiny Adak, adrift in the volcanic Aleutian chain of the west. And a place they call New Jersey. By year's end, he'd netted some 750 species of bird and quite possibly set a new ABA Big Year record. Please join us as Neil takes a Big Year, applies cutting-edge high pressure technology, and condenses it into a Big Hour! You will hear about exotic birds, remote places, volcanoes, polar bears, Aleutian plumbing and more! Government health warning: Big Years can be contagious. High pressure technology not previously tested. Neil Hayward grew up near Oxford, England, where, at a young age, he first became obsessed with birds. After a PhD in genetics at Cambridge University he moved (permanently) to the US in 2005 to head up the US operations of the biotechnology company Abcam. He left in 2011 to pursue a consulting career as owner of Cambridge Blue Consulting. Neil is currently the Field Trip Coordinator and a director of the Brookline Bird Club. He lives in Cambridge with his girlfriend Gerri and two cats, Sally and Khiva. 7:00 - 7:15 pm: Our very own Big Year birders, Dan Sanders (715 species in 2005) and Jay Lehman (733 species in 2013), will answer questions about their Big Year experience. Prepare to be amazed...! Paul Hurtado will facilitate the Q and A during the short program. 7:15 - 7:30 pm: social time, light refreshments, test your birding skills at the Bird Quiz table and a chance to win a prize, meet the OYBC students preparing for their Oct 4 Big Sit at Sawmill Wetlands from 8-12. Plan to buy your tickets for the Nov 1 George Archibald, My Life with Cranes program held 4-6pm at GIAC. Visit friends at GIAC for the Columbus Audubon monthly program. Be sure to sign in and get your ticket for one of 2 door prizes. Lots more is going on!!! 7:30 pm: Main program: Columbus Audubon announcements and our speaker Neil Hayward who holds the ABA Big Year record for 750 species in 2013 Columbus Audubon programs are free and open to the public. All programs are held at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center 505 West Whittier Street in the Scioto-Audubon Metro Park on the Whittier Peninsula. There is a fee for our special Saturday Nov 1 program with George Archibald and tickets can be purchased on our website www.columbusaudubon.org after the Sept 23 meeting. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]