January Meeting – Shorebirds of Florida

Our program will be presented by Michael Brothers

The Shorebirds of Florida.
A Red Knot flew an astounding 5,000 miles in a mere 6 days. Most of our
sandpipers travel all the way to the Arctic tundra to breed. Yet,
Wilson’s Plovers carry out their courtship and nesting nest on our own
beaches. These are only a sample of our wide array of sandpipers and
plovers that includes some of our most spectacular and readily
identifiable birds such as the American Oystercatcher and American
Avocet. However, it also includes the harder to identify birds, such as
the amazingly confusing “peeps.” Was that a Greater Yellowlegs or
Lesser? Is that a Western or Semipalmated Sandpiper? We will discuss
identification techniques to separate the various species as well the
life histories of these fabulous birds.

The presenter is Michael Brothers, the director of the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet,
Florida. Mr. Brothers has extensive natural science experience
including specializations in the bird life and flora of Florida, as well
as leading natural history tours throughout Florida, the Galapagos
Islands, Kenya, and the Amazon. He has been leading pelagic birding
expeditions off of Florida and Georgia for the last 11 years. He is
currently a member of the Florida Ornithological Society Records
Committee, which evaluates reports of birds recorded in the wild in
Florida and is responsible for updating the scientific record of
Florida’s bird life. Mr. Brothers is also the Florida regional editor
of the journal “North American Birds.” He is currently conducting a
banding project on Lesser Black-backed Gulls in Volusia County in hopes
of determining the breeding location of the Lesser Black-backed Gulls
that occur in North America.