Meetings & Programs

Dr. Jeffrey Buler - Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware
 

Dr. Buler will share highlights of recent and ongoing research by his lab and colleagues in the field of aeroecology; the study of the ecology of flying animals aloft. He will talk about how he uses radar and telemetry technologies to make new discoveries into 1) why and where birds stopover when migrating through the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes regions, 2) how waterfowl in the Delmarva peninsula may play a role for avian influenza transmission risk to poultry, and 3) the movement and roosting ecology of Purple Martins in our region.

Jeff Buler's broad research interests include avian ecology, landscape ecology, remote-sensing, and conservation biology. Dr. Buler established the Aeroecology Program at the University of Delaware in 2011. He is an international leader in the development of novel methods and software for using weather surveillance radars to study the broad-scale distribution, movement, and habitat use patterns of birds, insects, and bats.

Michael Moore - President of the Delaware Ornithological Society
 

Many birders struggle with identifying sparrows, referring to them as LBJ's (little brown jobs) or sparrow sp. This talk will help you tackle this difficult group. It will discuss and then attempt to blend the two main approaches to identification, the Peterson System and the Cape May School, to lead you to sparrow identification confidence. Each of the 16 species of regularly occurring sparrows in this area will be compared and contrasted with some discussion of finding and identifying rarities.
 

Mike is a recently retired Biology professor. He was at Arizona State University for 27 years and then at University of Delaware for 11 years before retiring a couple of years ago. He has published nearly 100 papers in scientific journals on behavior and hormones of birds and reptiles. He worked as an intern at Manomet Bird Observatory in Massachusetts in college and then completed a PhD in Zoology at the University of Washington on White-crowned Sparrows. He started birding in Massachusetts at 11 years old and has pursued it passionately since with a special interest in identification challenges and chasing rarities, splitting his field time between birds and his other passion, odonates. He is currently President of the Delaware Ornithological Society, a Vice President of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas and an eBIrd reviewer for Delaware.