Please join us for this talk by a popular and knowledgeable speaker!!

DATE:  Friday, October 6, 2006
TIME:  8:00 P.M.
PLACE:  Arlington Echo Environmental Education Center, Crownsville, MD. 

OF RICE AND RAILS: A REPORT ON RAIL POPULATIONS AT JUG BAY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF WILD RICE, BY GREG KEARNS

Greg Kearns will share his knowledge of Sora and other rails and the efforts to restore wild rice, a critically important food source for rails and other waterbirds on the Patuxent River. Greg, a MNCPPC naturalist for 25 years at Patuxent River Park, is a renowned authority on the Sora Rail and wetland ecology and an accomplished photographer and expert birder.  Since 1987, he and his colleagues have banded more than 1,400 Sora Rails and dozens have been fitted with radio transmitters.  Greg describes how far and to where Sora Rails migrate, how fast they fly, and what has caused their significant decline.  He will discuss the major wild rice restoration effort on the Patuxent along with efforts to control resident Canada Geese which grazed 1-2 pounds of wild rice/day per bird, and whose population was increasing 15%/year during the 1990s. With successful re-plantings and goose control, will Sora and other rail numbers increase?  

Sue Ricciardi for
Gerald W. Winegrad, AABC Program Chair