Upcoming Public Programs
All BRSS programs are free and open to the public
All programs offered are virtual using the Zoom app.
October 11th @ 7:00PM
Protecting the flamingos of the South American Altiplano
Zoom call with Dr. Felicity Arengo
Three of the world’s six flamingo species are found in the wetlands of the high Andean plateau or altiplano, a unique ecoregion that extends through Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. Within the arid desert, wetlands provide essential resources for human activity, and habitat for biodiversity highly adapted to extreme temperatures, altitudes, and salinity gradients. In a region where water is scarce, the unique biodiversity and lifeways are now confronted with an unprecedented level of development from lithium mining for rechargeable batteries. The world’s most abundant lithium reserves coincide with the areas of highest abundance of the altiplano’s iconic flamingos. While the landscape changes at a rapid pace, researchers are working to understand the social and environmental impacts of mining. In this program we’ll discuss how flamingos are an ideal flagship for conservation because of the landscape scale at which they use wetlands, and the tradeoffs of transitioning to renewable energy sources that rely on mining unexploited mineral reserves in sensitive, unique areas.
Dr. Felicity Arengo is a conservation biologist with experience in applied scientific research, outreach and communications, and site-based and regional conservation planning. She has thirty years of field research and project management experience and is currently the Americas coordinator of the IUCN Flamingo Specialist Group. She obtained her graduate degrees from the SUNY-College of Environmental Science and Forestry conducting research on flamingos in coastal wetlands in Mexico. In South America, she is working with partners monitoring flamingo populations and wetland habitats to develop and implement a long-term regional conservation strategy that will promote conservation of these systems. Until recently, Dr. Arengo was the Associate Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, serving in that position since 2004. From 1997-2004 she was the Assistant Director of Latin America and the Caribbean at the Wildlife Conservation Society. She is also an Adjunct Research Scientist at Columbia University where she teaches in the Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology department.
November 8th @ 7:00PM, via Zoom
saving hawaii’s birds
With saul scheinbach, PhD
The Hawaiian Island chain fascinates vulcanologists and evolutionary biologists alike. Famous for its frequently erupting volcanoes, it is also home to a unique group of birds known as honeycreepers. Beginning with one ancestral type that made it to this isolated archipelago about six million years ago, these birds hopped from island to island founding dozens of species as they adapted to newly forming habitats and ecological niches. But they began disappearing once humans arrived about 1,000 years ago. Now they face an existential threat that we can avert.
Saul Scheinbach, Vice-President of Hudson River Audubon, has been writing their newsletter science column, Science Watch, for over 25 years. He will talk about Hawaii, its eruptions and evolution, and how we can save these remarkable birds.
January 24th @ 7:00PM, via Zoom
The secret life of wild bees
With nick Dorian
You’ve probably heard “Save The Bees!” but do you know which bees need saving? Over 4000 species of bees inhabit North America, and most don’t live in hives or make honey. These wild bees come in every size, shape, and color you can imagine, and they live all around us, hiding in plain sight. In this lecture, PhD student and bee expert Nick Dorian will introduce you to the wild bees of the northeast. Together, we’ll examine their varied lifestyles and habitat needs, and the intricate relationships they have with flowering plants and other insects. You’ll come away charmed by these tiny pollinators and with clear action items for how to support them in your backyard.
Nick Dorian is an ecologist, an educator, and a naturalist. He is a PhD student at Tufts University where he studies the population ecology of solitary bees and runs the Tufts Pollinator Initiative (sites.tufts.edu/pollinators), an urban pollinator conservation and community outreach group. He co-wrote and photographed an online field guide to wild bees www.watchingbees.com.
February 7th @ 7:00PM, via Zoom
Bird Photography with Tom Warren
Tom Warren, a former photojournalist who now lives in Dobbs Ferry, is an avid bird photographer who has had his photos featured in Audubon's “Top 100” five times. Tom will not only share some of his most recent photography but will talk about how the latest photo technology has both simplified but even, in a way, complicated the art of capturing photos of birds in their Westchester County habitats. He will also provide tips to help make your bird photography a little less daunting than it may seem.
Tom will also be discussing the latest technology involving mirrorless cameras and artificial intelligence.
Tuesday April 23rd @ 7:00PM, via Zoom
The Birds of Shakespeare, with Missy Dunaway
Common Kingfisher — August 2022
Maine-based artist Missy Dunaway is creating a series of paintings to catalog all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays and poems, some 65 in all. She is roughly one-third of the way through her journey, aiming to create one new painting each month.
Birds afforded Shakespeare a rich metaphorical palette, with references appearing everywhere from Juliette’s words of love to Romeo, to the three witches’ ominous incantation in “Macbeth”. Dunaway’s beautiful, ingenious paintings incorporate not only the birds, but also the botanical elements of their habitats and the allegorical and mythological allusions that make them so meaningful in Shakespeare’s work.
Missy Dunaway is a 2010 Arts and Humanities graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Among her many awards have been a Folger Institute Fellowship which supported, in part, her Shakespeare project, and a Fulbright Fellowship.
Her thus-far competed bird paintings can be viewed at this link: Birds of Shakespeare
