GOS Winter Meeting
Tybee Island, GA
14 - 17 February 2025
Keynote Speaker: Christopher Wood, eBird/Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Friday Night Speaker: Allie Hayser, Manomet Conservation Sciences
Approximately 58 attendees participated in our Winter Meeting activities which included interesting and entertaining presentations on Friday and Saturday, the banquet and field trips. Weather was an issue for the weekend, leading to a couple of cancelled/rescheduled offshore and Little Tybee Island trips and a wet Sunday afternoon. In spite of that, participants found 160 species (see list below) on field trips to the Fife Plantation, Fort Pulaski, Fort Stewart, Harris Neck NWR, Hutchinson Island, Little Tybee Island, Richmond Hill Wastewater Treatment Facility, Savannah Christian Preparatory School, Savannah NWR, Savannah NWR Solomon Tract and Tybee Island. As always, thanks to our field trip leaders (Larry Carlile, Diana Churchill, Stan Gray, Rene Heidt, Ed Maioriello, Kyle Sheffield, Pam Smith, Steve Wagner, Mark Woodruff, Bob Zaremba).
Our Friday speaker, Allie Hayser, is a coastal Georgia native and shorebird biologist with Manomet Conservation Sciences and the Georgia Bight Shorebird Conservation Initiative. In her Friday evening presentation, “Building Connections for Shorebird Protection”, Allie shared information on several projects that she works on that focus on managing disturbance of migrating shorebirds and seabirds, understanding horseshoe crab populations, education and ethics for ecotourism, and developing stewardship programs.
Christopher Wood, Program Director for the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, gave the Saturday Keynote address titled “20+ Years of eBird: Past, Present and Future”. He co-founded eBird and has led the project in various roles for the last 20 years as it has become one of the largest sources of biodiversity data in the world. The data are now being used in a variety of conservation applications including estimation of bird population changes, land protection, land restoration, improving decision-making, and reducing negative impacts to biodiversity with energy, and food production. In addition to these current uses, he presented a few potential future projects, some of which could involve collaboration with GOS and Georgia birders.
Bird List (160 species):
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Snow Goose
Greater White-fronted Goose
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
Mallard
Mottled Duck
Green-winged Teal
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Black Scoter
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Wild Turkey
Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Common Ground Dove
Mourning Dove
King Rail
Clapper Rail
Virginia Rail
Sora
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Gray-headed Swamphen
American Oystercatcher
Black-bellied Plover
Wilson's Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Sanderling
Dunlin
Least Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Wilson's Snipe
Spotted Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Parasitic Jaeger
Razorbill
Bonaparte's Gull
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Common Tern
Forster's Tern
Royal Tern
Black Skimmer
Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Wood Stork
Northern Gannet
Anhinga
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
American Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Cooper's Hawk
Bald Eagle
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Barred Owl
Belted Kingfisher
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
American Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine Falcon
Eastern Phoebe
White-eyed Vireo
Blue-headed Vireo
Loggerhead Shrike
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Tree Swallow
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Golden-crowned Kinglet
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
House Wren
Winter Wren
Sedge Wren
Marsh Wren
Carolina Wren
European Starling
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Bachman's Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Seaside Sparrow
Nelson's Sparrow
Saltmarsh Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Henslow's Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Eastern Meadowlark
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle
Northern Waterthrush
Black-and-white Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Palm Warbler
Pine Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Painted Bunting