Annual Meetings Archive

2023

COA’s 39th ANNUAL MEETING 2023

Saturday, March 25, 2023 • Online Event

Note: The keynote talk was not recorded.

6:30 PM COA Business Meeting

Mini-Grant Recipients 2023 We received applications for project totaling $13,000.00 and were able to fund the projects listed below within our budget of $7,500.00.

See the list of eleven awardees here.

COA 2022 Report and Final Words – Tom Robben, President

• New look for COA and CT Warbler with design by Julian Hough (2021)
• Saving trees and expenses by going to all digital membership (which continues to grow) (Steve Morytko), digital COA Bulletin (Andrew Dasinger) and email correspondence (all).
• New CT Birds listserv moderator – Chuck Imbergamo
• 2 Science Conferences in Fall (Tom, COA and scientists)
• Bird of the Month project (Miley, Tom and Committee) 2022
• Lights Out CT Campaign, a project of COA with the aim to save thousands, perhaps millions of birds migrating through the state – led by a team including Meredith Barges and Craig Repasz.
• AND our website continually improving, e.g., adding portraits of Board, Affiliates, ARCC.  Thank you Cynthia! And Steve M.

Election of COA Officers and New Board Members – Denise Jernigan, Secretary

OFFICERS:

• President:  Chris S. Wood, Woodbury
• Vice President:  Cynthia Ehlinger,  Riverside
• Treasurer:  Paul Wolter,  Beacon Falls
• Secretary:  Tom Robben,  Glastonbury

NEW BOARD MEMBERS (3-year term): 

• Joe Attwater,  New London
• Jim Hunter, Woodbury
• Kimberly Jannerone,  New Haven
• Micky Komara,  Westbrook
• Bill Rankin,  New Haven
• Dan Rottino,  East Haddam   

Keynote Speaker

Jennifer Ackerman

Science writer and author of The New York Times bestseller The Genius of Birds, The Bird Way, and the forthcoming What an Owl Knows (2023)

Presentation: “The Genius of Birds”

Explore the brilliance of birds and delve into the mysteries of the avian brain as explored in the international bestseller, The Genius of Birds.  Join Jennifer Ackerman and experience her adventures firsthand, from the beaches of Barbados to the rainforests of New Caledonia, as she shares stories and stunning photos from her journey to better understand the feathered geniuses around us.  Learn how birds make and use their own tools, teach one another new skills, count, navigate, exercise astonishing feats of memory, create works of art, communicate in ways that resemble language, and even pass along cultural traditions. 

Jennifer will also touch on her newest highly anticipated book scheduled for release June 2023, What An Owl Knows.

About the Speaker: A bird-lover since childhood, Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about birds and nature for more than three decades. She is the author of nine award-winning books, including The Genius of Birds (Penguin Press, 2016), an international bestseller that examines how research has completely revised our view of the creatures we used to regard as ‘bird brained’. Her most recent book, What an Owl Knows: The new science of the world’s most enigmatic birds (forthcoming from Penguin Press, June 2023), explores recent findings on the biology, behavior, and conservation of owls. The Bird Way (Penguin Press, 2020) explores new scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds—how they live and how they think. It was selected as “A Nature Book of the Year” by the London Sunday Times and was a finalist for the Edward O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Jennifer’s books have been translated into 30 languages, and her articles and essays have appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times, Scientific American, and many other publications.

2022

COA 2022 ANNUAL MEETING

Saturday March 19, 2022 at 6:30 pm • Online Event

COA Business Meeting

Tom Robben, COA President, presented a brief overview of the year’s activities, followed by the election of officers and board members. See his presentation slides with comments here.

Officers for COA for 2022-23

• Tom Robben, President
• Chris S Wood, Vice-President
• Paul Wolter, Treasurer
• Denise Jernigan, Secretary

New COA Board members: Adam Fasciolo, Jo Fasciolo, Rick Gedney, Emily Keating, David Woolery

Presentation of COA Awards

• Mabel Osgood Wright Award, presented annually to a person or persons in Connecticut who have made a significant contribution to the knowledge, study, and conservation of birds, went to Paul Fusco.

• Betty Kleiner Award honors the memory of Betty Kleiner, whose name is synonymous with The Connecticut Warbler, COA’s flagship publication. The award recognizes a deserving author or artist in the field of ornithology. Julian Hough received the award for his article “Identification of Dowitchers in Juvenile and Non-Breeding Plumages” in the October 2021 issue of The Connecticut Warbler.

• COA Mini-grants Award – awarded annually to the applicant(s) whose project most benefits Connecticut birds.
  • Click here for the full list of eleven awardees.

• President’s Award (* indicates person is leaving the COA Board)
  • Steve Broker*
  • Nick Bonomo*
  • Angela Dimmitt*
  • Maureen Wolter*
  • David Provencher*
  • Cynthia Ehlinger, Web Master extraordinaire.
  • Denise Jernigan, Secretary extraordinaire.

• George Zepko Audubon Camp Scholarship is awarded annually to a young birding enthusiast.
  • Jonathan Wright-Goodison – Mountains to Sea Birding for Teens, June 26 – July 1, 2022
  • Conner Lehmacher – Coastal Maine Bird Studies for Teens, June 19-24, 2022.

Keynote Speaker

A Seabird Responds to a Melting Arctic: Observations and Insights from 50 Years of Study

George Divoky, PhD

Director, Cooper Island Arctic Research

SIGN IN AND CLICK ON THE MEMBERS ONLY PAGE FOR THE RECORDING OF DR. DIVOKY’S PRESENTATION.

George Divoky has studied Alaskan seabirds since 1970 when, as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, he participated in a three-year census of marine birds and mammals in response to the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay. In 1975 he began a study of Mandt’s Black Guillemots, an ice-obligate seabird, on Cooper Island, 35 km east of Point Barrow, Alaska. The study is the longest continuous seabird study in the Arctic and its findings on the consequences of decadal-scale reductions in snow and sea ice to seabird demographics and breeding provide some of the best examples of the long-term biological consequences of climate change.

Divoky is currently Director of Cooper Island Arctic Research, funded by the Seattle-based nonprofit, Friends of Cooper Island.

Divoky’s research on the Black Guillemots of Cooper Island was featured in a cover story in the New York Times Magazine, in the PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers program “Hot Times in Alaska” with Alan Alda, and on ABC Nightly News and Nightline.

Photo: Mandt’s Black Guillemot by Joe McNally

2021

The COA Board of Directors held an online Annual Meeting on Zoom on March 20, 2021 with 145 attendees. Author and researcher Scott Weidensaul presented the keynote address. Outgoing president Chris Loscalzo presided over the business meeting. 

• The officers for COA for 2021-22 are: Tom Robben, President
• Chris S Wood, Vice-President
• Paul Wolter, Treasurer
• Denise Jernigan, Secretary
• The new board members are: Melissa Baston, Ryan MacLean, Laurie Reynolds, Abby Sesselberg
• The recipient of the Mabel Osgood Wright Award is: Kathy Van Der Aue
• The recipient of the Betty Kleiner Award is: Alexander Lin-Moore
• The recipients of the President’s Award are: Steve Morytko and Terry Shaw
• The recipient of the Zepko Audubon Summer Camp Scholarship is: Eli Holton 

The recipients of the mini-grant awards are noted here.

A 52-minute video of the business portion of the 2021 Annual Meeting is available here.