The Queens County Bird Club will be meeting at the Alley Pond Environmental Center, 228-06 Northern Blvd Douglaston, NY 11362 >Map of location< <http://goo.gl/8cnmjT> at 8:00 pm this Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Free admission. Refreshments served.
Katie Fallon will present “Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird”. Katie is traveling from West Virginia to meet with us - I hope you will join us in giving her a warm welcome. Turkey vultures, the most widely distributed and abundant scavenging birds of prey on the planet, are found from central Canada to the southern tip of Argentina, and nearly everywhere in between. But despite being ubiquitous and recognizable, the turkey vulture has never had a book of literary nonfiction devoted to it—until Vulture: the Private Life of an Unloved Bird by Katie Fallon. Floating on six-foot wings, turkey vultures use their keen senses of smell and sight to locate carrion. Unlike the black vulture, turkey vultures do not kill weak or dying animals; instead, they cleanse, purify, and renew the environment by clearing it of decaying carcasses, thus slowing the spread of such dangerous pathogens as anthrax, rabies, and botulism. The beauty, grace, and important role of these birds in the ecosystem notwithstanding, turkey vultures are maligned and underappreciated; they have been accused of spreading disease and killing livestock, neither of which has ever been substantiated. Although turkey vultures are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the birds still face persecution. They’ve been killed because of their looks, their odor, and their presence in proximity to humans. Even the federal government occasionally sanctions “roost dispersals,” which involve the harassment and sometimes the murder of communally roosting vultures. Vulture follows a year in the life of a typical North American turkey vulture. By incorporating information from scientific papers and articles, as well as interviews with world-renowned raptor and vulture experts, author Katie Fallon examines all aspects of the bird’s natural history: breeding, incubating eggs, raising chicks, migrating, and roosting. After reading this book you will never look at a vulture in the same way again. Katie Fallon is the cofounder of the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia, a nonprofit research, education, and rehabilitation center for injured birds. A member of the International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators, she has glove-trained a wide variety of raptor species, including turkey vultures, hawks, owls, and falcons. She is the author of Cerulean Blues: A personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird. Katie lives in West Virginia. Copies of Katie’s books will be available for sale at the meeting. Nancy Tognan nancy.tog...@gmail.com Vice President, Queens County Bird Club See http://www.qcbirdclub.org for more information on trips, speakers, and other events. See our 'Birding Maps & Locations' page for directions to and info about many local birding hotspots * QCBC is a tax exempt, charitable organization {501c3}. * -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --