Hope AGM 2018 – A Great Success

Last weekend’s (June 1 – 3) Annual General Meeting held in Hope featured many highlights. There was not only excellent birding, but efficient and effective meetings, lots of friendly socializing, a wonderful facility with delicious food supplied by the Hope Golf and Country Club, and outstanding field trips.

Intimating the good times ahead, sights and sounds of nesting Merlins, right outside the conference centre, greeted delegates as they arrived.

Important business was conducted, including the adoption of a new constitution and by-laws. BCFO is now fully compliant with the new BC Societies Act. Our new President is Marian Porter from Saltspring and new Vice-President is Gary Davidson from Nakusp. Otherwise, the Board of Directors remains unchanged.

Our Saturday afternoon talk was a highly engaging look at the nesting behaviour of Turkey Vultures as filmed and described by David Manning in his presentation “The Old Man and the Vultures”. Our banquet speakers Kelly Pearce and Scott Denkers entertained the crowd with a talk entitled “The Bird Blitz Legacy” which covered both the history of and data collected during the Manning Park and Skagit Valley Bird Blitzes.

A total of 105 species of birds were seen over the weekend, with highlights including a Black-chinned Hummingbird in Hope and Northern Waterthrushes at Silver Lake and Manning.

Look for more detailed reports on the conference, the field trips, and the outstanding pre-conference two-day trip to Princeton in the next issue of BC Birding.

Chipping Sparrow – Princeton Two-day Trip. Photo: George Clulow

Announcing AGM 2018, June 1st to 3rd – Valleys and Mountains

The 2018 Annual General Meeting and Conference will be held in Hope on the weekend of June 1-3. The conference will take place in the banquet room of the Hope Golf & Country Club located right beside the Coquihalla River in Hope.

Hope is nestled at the base of the Coast Mountains Range with easy access to the North Cascades at Manning Park. The area offers great birding in the lowlands, adjacent valleys, and nearby alpine areas. We plan to explore them all. Field trips are planned for the Cheam Wetlands, Thacker Marsh, Silver Lake, Hope Airpark, and Manning Provincial Park.

Mark your calendars. On-line registration opens on April 1, 2018 and will remain open until the cut-off date of May 20.

Full details about registration will be published here, and in the Events section.

We look forward to seeing everyone there.

Cheam wetlands

The pre-conference trip will visit the Princeton area, while the post conference extension trip will go to the Williams Lake area to explore some of the great birding locations found there. Details of the three events will be in the March issue of BC Birding as well as on the web site.

Cheam Wetlands waterfowl

Christmas Bird Counts

December is rapidly approaching and what better excuse to escape the malls and seasonal madness than to participate in one or more Christmas Bird Counts?

You can check out the Province’s counts and count dates here. We update the page as we receive the information from the various count leaders.

Continuing the tradition for the last number of years, there are offerings of various Christmas Bird Counts 4 Kids as well. This page will be updated too as we receive new information.

 

Tumbler Ridge AGM post-script

Full reports on our excellent June AGM in Tumbler Ridge will be found in the upcoming BC Birding newsmagazine. We not only enjoyed fabulous birding, but saw first hand the evidence for the dinosaur origins of birds – Tumbler Ridge being BC’s premier location for dinosaur bones and trackways.

While we birders were outdoors looking up, others were clearly looking down with other targets in mind, and made an historic discovery. The day after our departure, BC’s first ever dinosaur skull was lifted from its discovery location on a local creek, and transported to the Tumbler Ridge Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre. Read more here about BC’s first dinosaur skull.

Dr. Rick Lambert with his discovery.

Close-up view of part of the tyrannosaurid skull (like an Albertosaurus), – probably around 75 million years old. Note the long curving teeth.

Close-up of tooth

Tyrannosaurid skull outline

Congratulations to our Tumbler Ridge hosts on this significant and exciting find.

Registration for Tumbler Ridge AGM and Tour-de-Peace Extension

A reminder for everyone that the registration and payment pages for this year’s Tumbler Ridge AGM, and the Tour de Peace extension trip open this weekend, Sunday April 2 at 9:00 am PDT.

You’ll find the links to these pages under the Events tab > Annual Conference above.

Look forward to seeing you in Tumbler Ridge.

Photo: William H. Majoros – licenced under Creative Commons