Paper Session

 Today we went to the Minnesota Ornithological Society Paper Session. The session was held at the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota in the Student Center and in the Northstar Ballroom. This large ballroom has a parquet wood floor, a stage, and attached to the ceiling in the middle of the room was a disco ball. I was surprised to see the disco ball. Coffee was available at 8 but the session really started at 9. The coffee was smooth and delicious. Various researchers gave us talks on bird related subjects. Each speaker talked for about 45 minutes. The Raptor Center gave a talk about the avian flu. Watching a great horned own and a red tail hawk having seizures in their final moments was heart breaking to watch. We listened to a talk about northern goshawks who prefer old growth aspen for nesting. These goshawks are larger birds and they can build their big stick nests in little aspen trees. Unfortunately the Minnesota DNR has decided that the state needs to preserve only 2 percent of the old growth aspen. That is so unfortunate. There was another talk about Connecticut warblers who prefer boggy areas for nesting. These warblers build their nests on top of the sphagnum moss which makes the nests difficult to find. The researcher who spoke put back pack transmitters on them to track how far they go. Another speaker talked about tracking American kestrels with Motus towers. When a kestrel with a backpack flies by the Motus tower receives a ping. The tower takes down the information about the kestrel and all the other birds wearing backpacks. There are 19 towers in Minnesota collecting information. A speaker from Hawk Ridge spoke of all the research articles and books that have been written from the data gathered during the last 50 years of research there. All in all it was a great day spent with other bird lovers and learning more about birds.