Braddock Bay Bird Observatory (BBBO) was founded in 1986 with the purpose of studying stopover ecology on the south shore of Lake Ontario. Operating with an all-volunteer staff, BBBO has developed a 30-year dataset consisting of nearly 250,000 records. Individually and collectively, these records tell fascinating stories of bird behavior, movement and survival across an increasingly challenging landscape. Come hear Andrea Patterson, President, Education Director and Newsletter Editor for BBBO, talk about the joyful moments, surprising revelations, and occasional heartbreak of birding in the hand.

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 10,000 birds as part of the Observatory’s long-term migration study. Patterson currently serves on the boards of North American Banding Council, Eastern Bird Banding Association, Braddock Bay Bird Observatory, and Rochester Birding Association. After first learning to bird in the hand, she is now learning to bird with binoculars but stubbornly refuses to keep anything but a mental life list.