BC Birding – December 2015 edition

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BC Birding Cover Dec 2015

The December edition of BC Birding welcomes our new editor, Clive Keen.

Following in the footsteps of our recently retired editor, June Ryder, you’ll find Clive has maintained the same high standards for our newsmagazine. Thank you, June for your tremendous service to BCFO. Congratulations Clive, on a great first edition.

Between the covers you’ll find a call for your listing reports, the announcement of next year’s Two-day Field Trips for Members, plus trip reports from visits to the Sooke Hawkwatch, a week in the Chilcotin, and some Costa Rica birding. The usual collection of fascinating articles on various avian topics ranging from summaries from the ornithological literature to observations at backyard feeders are there for your enjoyment under the Members tab above.

Christmas Bird Counts 2015/2016

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Preparations for this season’s Christmas Bird Counts are underway. You’ll find the dates we know so far under the CBC’s tab above. We’ll update continually as we receive more details of the various counts.

In addition, Christmas Bird Counts for Kids is a growing activity around the province, and they are ready to go in many locations. We’ve given them their own tab under CBC’s.

CBCforKids

CBC4Kids is a fun, family-friendly birdwatching event that promotes nature appreciation and environmental stewardship.

Celebrate birds with youth and their families while building bird identification skills and contributing to important Citizen Science for bird conservation!

Details of CBC4Kids locations are found here and by clicking the CBC4Kids logo above.

 

The Origin and Diversification of Birds

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Some BCFO members may find this Open Access Review of interest. Here’s the summary:

Birds are one of the most recognizable and diverse groups of modern vertebrates. Over the past two decades, a wealth of new fossil discoveries and phylogenetic and macroevolutionary studies has transformed our understanding of how birds originated and became so successful. Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic (around 165–150 million years ago) and their classic small, lightweight, feathered, and winged body plan was pieced together gradually over tens of millions of years of evolution rather than in one burst of innovation. Early birds diversified throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous, becoming capable fliers with supercharged growth rates, but were decimated at the end-Cretaceous extinction alongside their close dinosaurian relatives. After the mass extinction, modern birds (members of the avian crown group) explosively diversified, culminating in more than 10,000 species distributed worldwide today.

A PDF of The Origin and Diversification of Birds can be found here: http://is.gd/FtPGWD

BC Birding – September 2015 edition

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CoverSept2015BCBirding

Another very full edition of our newsmagazine BC Birding is now available for download or reading on-line in the members area above.

This September edition features articles about our Oliver/South Okanagan AGM and the Eastern Washington extension trip, the fantastic birding adventures of our Young Birders, and some BC ornithological history courtesy of Bill Merrilies. Mike Church’s summaries of fascinating findings from ornithological research continue as do Clive Keen’s The Reflective Birder pieces. A series of Memorable Avian Encounters have been contributed by Dennis Leonard, and Les Gyug has given us an account of the very successful, pre-conference, two-day trip he lead for members to the Kelowna area. There’s even more between the covers.