The State College Bird Club, Inc.

The State College Bird Club met on Wednesday October 23 at 7:15 p.m. at the State College Borough.    Thirty-three members and guests attended; President Greg Grove presided.  The minutes of the September 25 meeting were read by Deb Grove and approved by the group. Dorothy Bordner delivered the Treasurer’s Report which is given below. Dorothy also read the checklist: bird species seen within 25 miles between Sept 26 and Oct 23. Notable sightings were 20 brant flying over Tussey Mountain and a snow goose at Whipple’s Dam. Twenty-two saw-whet owls have been banded at Shaver’s Creek.

A field trip to Bald Eagle State Park is planned for November 3rd and is coordinated by Bob Snyder and Molly Heath.

The November 13 meeting will feature Chuck Fergus who will talk about his book on natural areas.

The October presentation was on the Lake Raystown Fieldstation and the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador.  Chuck Yohn is Director of the Field Station at Lake Raystown and  a faculty member  of the Environment Sciences and Studies at Juniata College. Chuck has a graduate degree in ornithology from Penn State.

The Raystown Field Station provides a unique outdoor lab for environmental education, providing research experience and specialty classes. With about 1.5 million visitors to Lake Raystown per year the impact can be monitored by research at the field station. An expansion is underway.

Juniata College also became involved with an exchange program with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito Ecuador and students can now intern at the field station at Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador.  It is probably the most diverse place on the planet. It requires an entire day to journey there and is in the middle of nowhere.  Various studies there include mist netting, radio telemetry on toucans, and  monitoring 40 species of tree frogs and 12 species of primate.  It is also home to the bullet ant and African bees and nearly all of the foliage is toxic.

Respectfully submitted.

Deborah S. Grove, October 23, 2002