Thursday, November 13, 2025
40 Years of Banding At Braddock Bay: What Have We Learned? – Andrea Patterson
Braddock Bay Bird Observatory has been banding birds on the south shore of Lake Ontario since 1986, and we’ve collected data on more than 300,000 birds. Thanks to a platoon of collaborating researchers including local professors and their undergraduate and graduate students, our data has been used to answer a variety of questions concerning the behavior, ecology, and biology of birds. Join us for a romp through 40 years of research, as we tackle questions like:
- Have we noticed any changes in bird populations or migrations over time?
- Are migrating flocks just associations of birds that happen to be coordinated by time, place, and species, or is there something more meaningful at work?
- Why do birds carry extra fat in the spring?
- Why do some insectivores switch their diet to fruit in the fall?
- Is it possible to distinguish individual Magnolia Warblers just by their night flight calls???
- What is that thing on the chin of that Great Crested Flycatcher?
We promise that you don’t need a knowledge of statistics or the scientific method to understand and enjoy this fun overview of our work.
Biography:
Andrea Patterson began volunteering at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory in 2009, and banded her first bird in the spring of 2010 when she took a bander training class from Elizabeth Brooks. Since then, she has handled more than 20,000 birds as part of the Observatory’s long-term migration study and has been lucky enough to spend time banding Saltmarsh and Nelson’s Sparrows in New Hampshire, rails (including one Black Rail!) in Louisiana, and Tawny-crowned Greenlets in Belize. Now the executive director of the Braddock Bay Bird Observatory, Andrea coordinates the migration, summer, and owl monitoring programs; facilitates the use of the Observatory as a field site for a half-dozen research affiliates; and teaches four banding classes annually.
Look for the Zoom link in your email a few days prior to the meeting. The Zoom Room will open at 6:45 PM. Don’t wait until the last minute to sign on, you might be left out!
