GOS Winter Meeting
Tybee Island, GA
16 - 19 February 2024
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Benjamin Freeman, Georgia Tech
Friday Night Speaker: Megan Linke, East Carolina University
Approximately 50 attendees participated in our Winter Meeting activities which included interesting and entertaining presentations on Friday and Saturday, the banquet and field trips. For the weekend, participants found 163 species (see list below) on field trips to the Corps of Engineers Disposal Site, 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 (Steve Calver, Larry Carlile, Diana Churchill, Stan Gray, Rene Heidt, Malcolm Hodges, Ed Maioriello, Mary Richards, Pam Smith, Steve Wagner, Russ Wigh, Mark Woodruff).
Our Friday speaker, Megan Linke, is a M.S. student at East Carolina University and a recipient of a Bill Terrell Graduate Research Grant from GOS. In her Friday evening presentation, “King Rail (Rallus elegans) habitat use in tidal and impounded wetlands of coastal South Carolina”, Megan shared experiences and observations from her field research with King Rails at Waccamaw NWR.
Dr. Ben Freeman, Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech, gave the Saturday Keynote address. His talk, “Tropical montane birds and the escalator to extinction: stories from the field”, covered his investigations of the effects of climate change on the distribution of species living at higher elevations. Working in Peru at a site that had been previously surveyed in 1985, he examined how species ranges had shifted along an elevational gradient. He found that ranges of several species had indeed shifted upwards and that some of the species that had occurred at the highest elevations were no longer present. He plans to continue this work with montane species, not only in the neotropics but in other mountain ranges around the world, including a little closer to home in the Appalachians.
Bird List (163 species):
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
Mallard
Mottled Duck
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Ring-necked Duck
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
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
American Avocet
American Oystercatcher
Black-bellied Plover
American Golden-Plover
Wilson's Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Piping Plover
Killdeer
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Stilt Sandpiper
Sanderling
Dunlin
Purple Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
American Woodcock
Wilson's Snipe
Spotted Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Parasitic Jaeger
Bonaparte's Gull
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
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
Reddish Egret
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
White-faced Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
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
Eastern Phoebe
Western Kingbird
White-eyed 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
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 Sparrow
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Seaside Sparrow
Saltmarsh Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Henslow's Sparrow
Song 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
Nashville Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Palm Warbler
Pine Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Northern Cardinal