State College Bird Club (Brief) Meeting
May 28, 2025


Presiding: Doug Wentzel

Recording: Peggy Wagoner Saporito
 
Attendance: 16

Meeting Format: In-person potluck picnic at Tudek Park pavilion on a chilly, damp, drizzly, mid 50’sF evening.

Bird Club Field Trips: (Kathy Bechdel VP of Field Trips)

Two summer trips are planned:

Sunday June 15 at Penns Prairie, Tri-County Municipal Park, Centre Hall.

The annual Sweets and Swifts field trip will be Wednesday July 16 from 8:15-9:15 at Ferguson Township Elementary School.

All the details can be found on our website (click on Schedule).

Announcements/Other Activities

As an enjoyable icebreaker to start the informal meeting, Brady opened up the floor to everyone to share with the group any “Remarkable Birds” they have seen or interesting birding experiences.

Doug W. thanked SCBC officers and members for all of the work that they do to make this a vibrant, active club;

•    Brady (VP of Programs): for finding speakers that provide us with interesting monthly presentations.
•    Karen (Treasurer): for keeping meticulous track of our accounts
•    Kathy (VP of Field Trips): for organizing a variety of trips for different levels of birders and even coordinating our    first, in a decade, out-of-area trip.
•    Peggy (Secretary): for recording meetings.
•    Bob Fowles (Board Member at Large): for timely updates and edits to our website
•    Coty Ehrenhaus: for timely updates and edit to our Facebook page
•    Members: for volunteering to lead field trips and helping at tabling events
•    Outreach Committee (Kathy, Jon K, Coty Ehrenhaus and Brady): for all of the tabling events they participated in this spring and the promotional materials they have developed.
•    SCBC Grant Selection Committee (Sue Braun, Deb Escalet and Peggy) for coordinating Grant applications and selection for funding.

Five applications were received by the grant selection committee. This year we had $1416 to disperse for bird conservation/research and/or education projects using the annual distribution from our SCBC Bird Conservation Endowment Fund managed by Centre Foundation. Four applications were selected for funding in full or part. These included one research, one education and two conservation projects to be distributed to:

•    Andrew Bechdel: (research) Musser Gap BirdNET PUC unit to detect avian species in a regenerating riparian zone.
•    Sunna deForest (education) State College Friends School Bird Observation station, a student-initiated project to expand the existing feeding station with live cam
     and feeder to be tied in with 2nd through 5th grade curriculum using Cornell Lab of Ornithology educational materials.
•    Joe Gyekis and Meghan Hoskins (conservation) Bird Safe Glass at PSU campus to add Feather Friendly dots on south facing windows of Huck Building bridge.
•    Joanna Taylor (conservation) Bluebird Habitat Network Inc., to create a new bluebird nestbox trial at Whitehall Road Regional Park.

With each of these projects we are able to leverage our funding contribution with other funds that each of the recipients have secured. Peggy made a motion to the members present at this meeting to approve fund dispersal, Julia Plummer seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Kathy discussed items that the Outreach Committee has secured and still needs for tabling events. In particular, the committee is looking to acquire ideas and materials for activities and crafts for children.

A thank you card from Laurie McLaughlin and the Shaver’s Creek staff for SCBC members’ generous and continuing support of Birding Cup was shared.