Subject: WOS Meeting Monday
Date: Jan 28 10:56:36 2003
From: Michael Hobbs - hummer at isomedia.com
The next membership meeting of the Washington Ornithological Society will
be Monday, February 3rd, in Seattle:
George Divoky will present research on guillemots in Alaska:
Monitoring Climate Change With an Arctic Seabird: The Response of Black
Guillemots to a Warming Climate in Northern Alaska by Dr. George J.
Divoky, Research Associate, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of
Alaska, Fairbanks.
While the arctic is home for millions of birds each summer almost all
undertake major migrations when breeding is complete. The black guillemot
is one of the few species that remains in the arctic, where it winters in
and directly next to the Arctic pack ice. This limited migration as well
of a number of other life history characteristics makes it an ideal
monitor of the Arctic environment. Since 1975 the breeding biology of a
black guillemot colony near Point Barrow, Alaska has been studied
annually. The colony is unique in that all nests are in man-made
structures allowing unprecedented access to nest contents and breeding
birds. The study has benefited both from its longevity, which has allowed
the detection of trends that shorter studies would miss, and from regional
changes in climate that have occurred in the region in the last half
century. The response of the colony to increased temperatures over the
last twenty-eight years demonstrates how a warming environment can act to
both the benefit and detriment of high latitude avifauna. See
http://cooperisland.org/ for more information.
Bio: George Divoky has studied seabirds in Alaska since 1970. While his
current focus is a black guillemot population he has participated in a
wide range of seabird studies in the state. He is a native of Cleveland,
Ohio and received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Zoology from
Michigan State University. He obtained his doctorate from the University
of Alaska where he now holds a position of Research Associate at the
Institute of Arctic Biology. Outside of the field season he resides in
Seattle where he has a 12-year-old son
Monthly Membership Meetings are held the first Monday of the month (except
July, August, & September). They are held at the Center for Urban
Horticulture on the University of Washington campus, 3501 NE 41st St.,
Seattle, and are open to all. The social begins at 7:00 p.m. and the
program starts at 7:30 p.m.
Directions: From I-5 take SR520 East. Take the Montlake Blvd NE exit and
turn North towards the University of Washington campus. Stay in right lane
and drive North on Montlake Blvd (over the bridge and past the stadium).
The road will curve to the right around the Montlake Fill and merges with
NE 45th St. You will quickly approach a 5 way intersection. At the
intersection turn right onto Mary Gates Memorial Drive. The Center for
Urban Horticulture is 2 long blocks down on the right. There is plenty of
free parking at the facility. We use the main meeting room, the backside
of which faces the road. The following bus routes stop at NE 45th and Mary
Gates Memorial Drive: #25, 65, & 75.
== Michael Hobbs
== Washington Ornithological Society Webmaster
== http://www.wos.org
== WOSWeb at wos.org