Well over 1000 people from the western hemisphere are gathered on the campus of the University of British Colunbia to discuss, debate and present new ideas and science on their passion – birds.

The North American Ornithological Meetings are creating a buzz in this part of the country.  With over 700 presentations and even more posters, as well as symposia on topics ranging from conservation priorities for Canada’s birds to long distance seed transport and cache selection by Clarke’s Nutcracker, the program is loaded with quantity.  Graduate students presenting summaries of their theses, long term researchers sharing findings, new technologies being explained and challenged, in short, basically everything about birds is being talked about.

During today’s poster sessions, I learned about a program to put wire mesh caps over the outvents from outdoor latrines to prevent owl deaths, an exciting Caribbean birding trail, the recent discovery of large numbers of Piping Plovers overwintering in the Bahamas, and a Columbian effort to establish a long-term bird monitoring station in the Darien.

During the sessions, I learned about the latest take on window collisions as a source of mortality for birds, several projects in Canada’s boreal region to better understand the impacts of forestry and energy extraction activities on bird populations, biases in geolocators, and preconstruction assessments of offshore wind energy projects near Rhode Island.

Many colleagues from Bird Studies Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service, Canadian Migration Monitoring Network, and many other organizations in Canada and abroad are present here.  There is a real buzz, and energy in the air.  I am grateful to be here representing Nature Canada.  I’ll update about more experiences later this week.