Ospreyers,

Here's an event that I'm sure you'll be interested in.  Please note that a donation at the door will be appreciated, with the proceeds going to support the Maryland/DC Breeding Bird Atlas Project.  Also note that the day of the lecture is a THURSDAY.

FAMED ORNITHOLOGIST CHANDLER ROBBINS TO SPEAK

Richard E. Heise, Jr. Annual Wildlife Lecture at Quiet Waters Park, Hillsmere Drive, Annapolis. Thursday, March 3, 2005, at 8:00 p.m.

What I Have Learned from One Hundred Thousand Net-hours of Backyard Bird Banding

Maryland's most famous and beloved ornithologist, Chan Robbins, has been a wildlife research biologist and is in his 60th year at the U.S.G.S. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel. His long career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey has taken him to all seven continents as well as islands in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Dr. Robbins' chief focus has been the conservation of North American birds, including the design of surveys, study of habitat requirements, and the encouragement of trained amateurs to participate in scientific surveys. 

Chan Robbins designed the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which has been monitoring population trends of North American birds in the U.S. and Canada since 1966. And with his Patuxent colleagues, he published a Wildlife Monograph that shows how fragmentation of a large forest tract into smaller segments causes predictable decreases in the bird species that can nest there.

He was senior author of the first Maryland Breeding Bird Atlas, a joint project of the Maryland Ornithological Society and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and now, 20 years later, is serving on the steering committee for the second Maryland atlas.

For ten winters, Dr. Robbins studied albatrosses nesting on Midway Island in the Pacific, and more recently, for twenty winters, he studied habitat needs of North American migratory birds on their Latin American wintering grounds. In the late 1950's and 1960's he was the biologist in charge of reducing the hazard of albatrosses to military aircraft at Midway Naval Station, culminating in removal of dunes along the runways and paving of the shoulders to prevent birds from nesting close to the runways.

Chan was responsible for drafting the list of birds to be protected by the USA/USSR migratory bird treaty act, and was a member of the 3-man FWS negotiating team. This was the first USA treaty to protect the habitats needed by the birds, not just the birds themselves.

When pressed to name his favorite birding area in all the world, he says it is his 2½ acre back yard in Laurel, where he has identified 201 species of birds since 1950 and has studied their migration patterns since 1970. Banding of migratory birds has been a hobby of Dr. Robbins since 1937, and his talk will summarize what he has learned from the banding studies in his back yard.

Chan received his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1940, and subsequently his master's from George Washington University, and his doctorate from the University of Maryland. He is a Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union and has received many awards including the Distinguished Service Award, U. S. Department of the Interior, Chuck Yeager Award, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and recognition as the National Audubon Society's 100 Champions of Conservation of the 20th Century.