State College Bird Club Meeting
April 23, 2025


Presiding: Doug Wentzel

Recording: Peggy Wagoner Saporito
 
Attendance: 34 in person/20 on zoom

Meeting Format: Hybrid: In-person (Millbrook Marsh Nature Center) and Zoom.

Treasurer’s report:(Karen Kottlowski):

SCBC account balances: checking: $5207.54 and savings: $5579.87. We received the annual SCBC Endowment distribution from Centre Foundation for $1416.00 which will be used to fund bird conservation grants.

Tussey Mountain Hawk Watch (Jon Kauffman)

There are only a few more days for the official count on Tussey Mountain. Thanks to Adam Bradley for his dedication as our official counter and for his great hospitality and knowledge that he shared with everyone who visited the mountain this season. Jon also expressed his appreciation of SCBC and Shaver’s Creek for providing funding to support the hawk count effort.

Conservation Awareness/Policy Update (Tess Wilson)

Tess Wilson, Audubon’s Network Engagement Manager for the Mid-Atlantic introduced herself. She described the work that Audubon is doing to spread awareness about bird conservation policies and activities in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Jim Brown is also part of the Audubon policy team. Areas of focus include: Healthy Forests, Delaware River, Renewable Energy and Coastal issues. Tess helps to build coalitions, educate lawmakers and testify to advocate for bird conservation. Priorities for 2025 which are PA state initiatives are PACER (PA Climate Emissions Reduction) and PRESS (PA Reliable Energy Sustainability Standards). Tess also described many of the bills being introduced in the PA House of Representative to support renewable energy and habitat enhancement.

Announcements/Other Activities

Susan Braun reminded us that applications for SCBC bird conservation grants are due next week on April 30.  The grant selection committee (Susan, Deb E. and Peggy) is still inviting any members interested in joining us to review grants.

Projected on the screen at the front of the room for participants to see as we arrived was the list of events at which SCBC had an information table. SCBC participated in the State College Earth Day event on April 19. The next tabling event will be on May 17 at Bald Eagle State Park. If interested in helping with any tabling events, contact Kathy Bechdel.

Election of SCBC Officers

Joe Gyekis, a member of this year’s nominating committee, asked if there were any nominations from the floor to fill positions up for election: President, VP of Programs, Secretary and two Board members at large. With no nominations voiced, Joe made a motion to re-elect the current slate of Board members, Doug Wentzel (president), Brady Thomas (VP of Programs), Peggy Wagoner (Secretary), Deb Escalet and Doug Mason (Board members at large). The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

Birds of Note: (Joe Gyekis): (Mar 27- Apr 23, 2025; Centre and its contiguous counties)

Instead of listing the rare/unusual birds seen in the area over the previous month (of which there were many, including late departures and early arrivals), Joe opened the floor for anyone to comment on interesting bird sightings, behaviors or locations we had observed. Doug W. mentioned that a yellow throated warbler, a bird regularly seen in southwestern PA, but rarely here, was noted during the past two days at Shaver’s Creek.  During the month, he also spotted two glossy ibis flying over his house. Joe commented on the fallout of loons at Bald Eagle State Park including numbers of red-throated loons calling as they descended to the lake.

Speaker: Bryce Robinson: “The Red-tailed Hawk Project"

Bryce, a PhD candidate with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, focuses his research on the evolution of diversity in Red-tailed Hawks (RT). As part of this work, Bryce co-created and leads the Red-tailed Hawk Project, a working group aiming to fill knowledge gaps in our understanding of the life history and evolution of this species. Research includes migration/movement ecology, taxonomy, biogeography and genomics. Information generated through this work is communicated to a broad range of audiences including the Birds of the World app where Bryce, also an accomplished ornithological illustrator, uses his talents to beautifully portray the subjects of his study.

RT is widely distributed throughout North America and is classified into 16 geographic subspecies. It is considered a polytypic species with a wide diversity of plumage types from very dark to pale. Some subspecies, like our eastern RT (borealis) are monotypic; they come in one color or morph.  Across much of the West, from British Columbia to northern Mexico, the dominant breeding subspecies (calurus) exhibits a variety of morphs (dark, rufous, light) and is considered polymorphic.

The complexity within this single species presents many questions. Bryce described some of the fascinating research he and others are doing and shared preliminary results from the project’s work.

Research methods include the “extended specimen” approach which involves capturing individual birds, taking as much data as possible from each individual including measurements, samples and standardized photographic images documenting plumage details before release. Some captured birds are fitted with GMS/(GPS) tags that transmit location data via cell phone infrastructure.

Bryce discussed extensive tracking efforts to better understand migration patterns as well as home range movements of breeding and non-breeding individuals. He shared maps of the routes taken by individuals that winter in the Great Plains and breed in Canada and Alaska. Bryce also described movements of RT that migrate north in the spring through Michigan and reluctantly cross the 5 mile stretch of water to reach the Upper Peninsula before heading onto Canada.

Bryce also discussed some of the genomic work he is doing to understand evolutionary history among subspecies of North American RT as well as the Rufous-tailed hawk that lives at the southwestern end of South America, but looks remarkably like our RT. He determined that the Rufous-tailed is indeed genetically a RT and is closely related to calurus found in Idaho. Calurus migrates down the west coast of North America into Central America and it is likely that some individuals, that happened to be coming from Idaho, just kept going, finding themselves in southern South America where they established a new population.

Surprisingly, calurus is more closely related to this South American species than it is to our eastern borealis subspecies. The Rocky Mountains serve as a barrier between the western US and eastern RT populations, allowing for slight genetic divergence within the species. With freer movement across northern Canda where there is not a major mountain range barrier, populations in Alaska are more closely related to eastern RT than are the western US populations.

The interplay of plumage types, genetics, adaptation to habitats and species movements is what Bryce and the Red-tailed Hawk Project are helping to understand. For more information and updates, visit: www.redtailedhawkproject.org and to see Bryce's ornithological illustration work, visit www.ornithologi.com.