NOU Spring Field Days and Annual Meeting, Gering, May 20-22, 2022

• Main Author: Paseka, Janis
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 2022
• Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Ornithology; Population Biology; Poultry or Avian Science; Zoology; Finch; Stearns; Harding; Northern Goshawk; Red-necked Phalarope
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nebbirdrev/1521; https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/context/nebbirdrev/article/2520/viewcontent/Field_days_Annual_Meeting.pdf

The NOU Annual Meeting and Spring Field Days, organized by Kathy DeLara, Robin Harding, Jan Johnson, Alice Kenitz and Ruthie Stearns, was held in Gering on May 20-22, 2022, with 64 in attendance. This was the first time the organization had been able to get together since the meeting in Imperial in September of 2019. Our spring and fall meetings in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our meetings and meals took place in the Gering Civic Center. The weekend weather varied from cool and sunny to windy, snowy, or rainy, but the total species list for the meeting was 174. Field trips were led by Stephen Brenner, Kathy DeLara, William Flack, and Wayne Mollhoff, and destinations included Buffalo Creek WMA, Wright’s Gap Road, Pumpkin Creek, Gering West Lawn Cemetery, Scotts Bluff National Monument, Old Stage Hill Road, Wildcat Hills SRA, Circle Butte Road, Harrison, Gilbert-Baker Wildlife Area, Hat Creek Road, and Sowbelly Canyon. Among the highlights were Common Poorwill, Broad-tailed and Calliope Hummingbirds, Piping Plover, Long-billed Curlew, Red-necked Phalarope, Northern Goshawk, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Gray Flycatcher, Cassin’s and Plumbeous Vireos, Cassin’s Finch, Green-tailed Towhee, and MacGillivray’s Warbler. On Friday evening, we heard from Nathan Pieplow, professor at the University of Colorado and author of The Peterson Field Guide Bird Sounds of Eastern North America, on “The Language of Birds”.