The Florida Ornithological Society (FOS) held its 40th anniversary meeting at Archbold Biological Station from October 12-14, and Audubon was well represented. Audubon’s Ann Paul is the Vice President and she and Marianne Korosy are Board members who attended. Staff scientists Mark Rachal and Paul Gray were in attendance and many Audubon Chapter members participated.

Highlands County Audubon Chapter Vice President Margaret Gleave helped welcome the FOS to Archbold and Chapter member Helen Obenchain helped lead a birding tour of the Lake Placid area. Paul Gray helped lead a tour of the Kissimmee River Restoration project on the Riverwoods Field Station’s pontoon boat. Ann Paul organized and moderated the paper session where Audubon staff gave three presentations: Ann Paul, Mark Rachal, and Ann Hodgson teamed for presentations on Reddish Egret population trends in west central Florida and another on Brown Pelican nesting on islands in the Tampa Bay area.  Marianne Korosy gave a talk from her dissertation research about habitats and diets of four grassland sparrows in the Dry Prairie Ecosystem.

The Saturday night banquet speaker was Dr. Reed Bowman whose talk on the history of research on the Florida Scrub-Jay was dedicated in memory of his colleague Glen Woolfenden, whose appreciation of the apparent “anti-Darwinian” cooperative behavior of jays proved that helpers at the nest were promoting their own selfish advancement.  Reed’s talk described the hard work, clear thinking, and collaborative efforts that resulted in highly entertaining science at its best.

These meetings are fun in that attendees are a mix of amateur and professional bird and nature lovers, convening in an interesting place, and in a relaxed atmosphere. Archbold is a world-class biological station and attendees learned of research there that traced 12 generations of Florida Scrub Jay families, one of the most detailed biological data sets that has ever been compiled. We got a tour of the Station’s collections that contains myriad birds, even including extinct species such as Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, Dusky Seaside Sparrows, Carolina Parakeets, and Passenger Pigeons. And local birders lead tours of this special part of Florida.

The actual meeting hall is the new Frances Archbold Huffy Learning Center, an environmentally intelligently architectural building, one of the few platinum LEED certified in the United States.