Middle Creek Speaker Series

Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area – Speaker Series

September
Wednesday, September 11th at 6:30 PM
Traveling with Towhees: Motus Bird Migration Tracking at Middle Creek and Beyond – This program will focus on bird migration research at Middle Creek using the Motus Wildlife Tracking System. You will learn about the birds that have been detected by the local Motus receiving station and the pathways that those birds have taken. There will be a specific focus on Eastern Towhee migration and the role that Middle Creek is playing in documenting the first migration pathways of this species.

October
Wednesday, October 9th at 6:30 PM
Borders for Birds: Creating Early Successional Habitat and Promoting Healthy Forests on Private Lands by Utilizing USDA Programs – Expand the knowledge of private landowners on what conservation practices they can implement on their land to provide quality wildlife habitat within forests with USDA NRCS programs. We will review some of the practices available including treating noxious and invasive species, types of timber stand improvement, practices to create early successional habitat creation and many more. We will go through step by step process of applying and receiving funding from NRCS and what to expect.

November
Wednesday, November 13th at 6:30 PM
Solid Air, Invisible Killer: Saving Billions of Birds from Windows – This presentation will present an overview of an important conservation issue for birds and people using Dr. Klem’s 2021 book on the topic. The book describes the cause and breadth of this universal problem of windows as indiscriminately lethal and devastating hazards to free-flying birds, and how to solve it. Detailed objective observations and experiments reveal that birds behave as if clear and reflective windows are invisible to them. Alarmingly, among the dead are the fittest individuals in species populations. Unlike the complexities of other environmental challenges, such as climate change, this human-associated avian mortality factor can be solved. The means to do so will be described and are documented in greater detail in the pages of his book.

December
Wednesday, December 11th at 6:30 PM
Monitoring for Non-native Aquatic Invertebrates in the Great Lakes: A Sentinel Site Approach – Non-native species have significant economic and ecological impacts across ecosystems. Scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center lead an aquatic invasive species monitoring program with many partners in the US Great Lakes to detect new species and inform management decisions. This group uses various techniques to collect and analyze samples for non-native organisms.