Events
Join the club and stay tuned for upcoming events! Events will happen approximately once a month. Ideas are welcome!
Feedback welcome! Click here to share your input on event ideas and timing!
July 2023. Alice, Ever After Books
A wonderful first program with our official bookstore - Alice, Ever After Books (https://www.aliceeverafterbooks.com/)! We enjoyed stories of real, mythical, and imaginary birds while trying our hand at making our own! Many thanks to artist Christina Baal (https://www.drawingtenthousandbirds.com/) who was the artist behind the American Birding Association's 2022 Bird of the Year art (https://www.aba.org/product-category/art/). Christina's book, Once Upon A Feather: A Field Guide to Fantastic Birds, was one of the books we enjoyed and were inspired by during the event and she even sent along free gifts for attendees and future events!
It was a beautiful day to lead a Birding 101 program at Graycliff! The highlights were the Bald Eagles and the beautiful Red-headed Woodpeckers!
Lots of peents but no sightings on a beautiful evening at Tifft Nature Preserve! Thanks to all who came out for this great walk!
A beautiful spring morning to enjoy a walk at Forest Lawn with Dr. Kyle Horton following his Vaughan Lecture at the Buffalo Museum of Science. Brown Creepers were a particularly abundant sign of spring!
Weather, health, and the holidays interrupted fall and early winter programming but we made up for it with a great Birds on the Niagara Festival with events at Reinstein and Tifft welcoming new families and enjoying reconnecting with long-time young birder friends! Check out photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/1TAZBff35G9DZWTs9.
Our September outing took us to CW Native Plant Farm. We had a nice fall walk exploring the beautiful property then headed to Iroquois NWR to look for fall migrants and found ourselves surrounded by Yellow-rumped Warblers in the trees behind the visitor center!
We had a great (if very warm) hike with Matt Nusstein from NYS Parks! We saw our NY State Bird (Eastern Bluebird), other great local summer birds including lots of fledgling Bobolinks sounding just like R2D2, and great nature in general from butterflies and dragonflies to trees and chipmunks!
It was wonderful to welcome some new faces and say hello to frequent fliers Nora & Gina and enjoy the beautiful weather for Get Outdoors and Get Together Day at Reinstein Woods! The highlight of our wander (besides the great people and beautiful weather!) were definitely the Green Heron, Great Blue Heron, Kingbird, and Pied-billed Grebes at and around Lily Pond.
We had a lovely exuberant wander around Camp Allegany at Allegany Nature Pilgrimage! Great to connect with frequent fliers and new friends as we shared in an incredible weekend of birds, bugs, herps, and nature in general on one of the most beautiful weekends wny has to offer. Save the date for next year June 2-4!
The rain didn't keep us down as we explored Western New York Land Conservancy's College Lodge Forest with the amazing Marcus Rosten. Not only did we see and hear some cool birds like the Canada Warbler we spotted and the Black-throated Green Warbler and Ovenbird who were trying to out-sing each other, we also saw salamanders, newts, frogs, toads, millipedes, and lots of cool fungi which Marcus was able to help us learn so much about.
We had a great evening looking for and finding American Woodcock along with a number of other cool birds and even a beaver!
Want to learn more? Here are some great resources:
The Field Guide's Podcast Episode 37 - "Bill and Steve Go Timberdoodlin'": Co-hosted by a WNY YBC parent! Filled with amazing facts and a little PG humor (mostly around the name woodcock which definitely has to bring a giggle!). Every episode of The Field Guides is a gem and a delightful way to learn about nature when you are in the car on your way to nature.
Terra Project Video, "Favorite Bird Sounds: American Woodcock": Great short video intro to the woodcock. Video is from a really exciting project to get audio recorders and radio receivers distributed broadly in order to help people connect with the nature around them while contributing to what is positioned to be a really exciting community science initiative. Learn more at www.terralistens.com.
WNY YBC even got a shout out from The Field Guides for this walk in Episode 56 - Let's Get Nuts!
Five families enjoyed a scavenger hunt, a visit with the president of the UB Campus Audubon Chapter Lauren Smith, and a nice walk around Beaver Meadow on a beautiful afternoon!
We had a great small group wander with 4 kiddos and 3 parents. We did some feeder watch then braved to cold and saw a barred owl!