MOS 1999 Annual Conference

Norm Saunders (osprey@ARI.Net)
Sat, 15 May 1999 04:48:54 -0500


Well, ospreyers, it turned out, as expected, to be a wonderful
weekend in Southern Maryland!

First off, my apologies to you folks who signed up for my field
trip Friday afternoon.  The afternoon had been crazy hectic and
I had a misunderstanding about the meeting time.  I'm truly
sorry for standing you up.  At the same time, the opportunity
for Fran and me to bird around Calvert Cliffs State park with
Greg Miller was wonderful!  We had a good chat, Greg!

Greg's talk on Friday night, of course, was great!  Just listening to 
his descriptions of his big year tired me out, but also brought back
all the warm feelings I'd felt all during the previous year as he
shared his adventure with us here on MDOsprey as it was happening!

The MDOsprey reception on Friday night went really well!  For
those of you who didn't get the word that it was that evening,
I'm sorry we missed you, but quite honestly I'm not sure we could 
have squeezed anyone anyone else in!  Grin...  Anyway, it was
good to meet so many old and new Osprey friends!

Saturday held a full day of birding, Sybil Williams' excellently run
Silent Auction (Fran beat out Bonnie Ott bidding for the bird
socks!), a rehabilitator's hurt-bird display, a wonderful wildlife
art exhibit, and, of course, our Exciting Annual Meeting.

It was especially exciting for me because of the awards we 
gave out this year.  

Valued Service Awards were presented to Isa Sieracki for her
work with the Scholarship Committee, to Leanne Pemburn
for the May Count Coordination she did so well, and to Lou
DeMouy for his outstanding organizational work on the last
three MOS Conferences.

We gave a Conservator of the Year Award to Gene Scarpulla
for the great work he has done over the past year informing
people and working for the preservation of Hart-Miller Island
as a place for migrating birds to stop off.

Finally, we gave a Distinguished Career Service Award to
John Malcolm, a man who has done just about every
job imaginable during his more than 25 years with the
MOS organization.

Some would think this was enough, but the high point for
me came at about 1:45 Sunday morning when I spoke 
with an exuberant yet exhausted Hal Wierenga to find that 
our own MD Yellowthroats had tallied 178 species
during the World Series of Birding to take the Limited
Geographical Area (single-county) Championship and
further, that they had won the Cape Island Cup, the
award given each year to those tallying the largest
number of species in Cape May County.

My sincere congratulation go out to Hal Wierenga, Lynn
Davidson, Mark Hoffman, and Marshall Iliff for a job well
done--you did MOS proud!  My thanks go out to all the
extremely generous members of MOS who made donations 
and pledges in support of the team and in support of
MOS outreach programs.  Thank you!!!!

The last official act of the Conference was the tally rally
handled by Bob Ringler on Sunday at noon.  Collectively
the field trips saw 162 species on some very strange birding
days--high winds, not a lot of migration activity, etc.

Finally, my thanks go out to the Southern Maryland Audubon
Society for their wonderful hospitality and to the Anne Arundel
and Jug Bay Chapters for taking the point position in 
organizing a most successful joint venture!

And now, back to work...sigh.

Best,
Norm Saunders

===============
Norm Saunders
Colesville, MD
osprey@ari.net