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Bedford Audobon Features Glenn Proudfoot For Saw-Whet Owl Lecture

BEDFORD, N.Y. -- Bedford Audobon will welcome Dr. Glenn Proudfoot for a free public lecture on Northern Saw-whet Owl migration at the Katonah Village Library on Wednesday, Sept. 10.

Glenn Proudfoot will talk about  Northern Saw-whet Owl migration.

Glenn Proudfoot will talk about Northern Saw-whet Owl migration.

Photo Credit: Contributed
Northern Saw-whet Owl

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Photo Credit: Contributed

Proudfoot is a visiting scholar and assistant professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and research associate at Mohonk Preserve in New Paltz, N,Y. He will focus his lecture on migration patterns and blood parasites and stress in migrating Northern Saw-whet Owls, and the efficacy and limitations of bird banding as a tool for studying species-wide migration patterns.

The tiny Northern Saw-whet Owl is one of the most common owls in northern forests, but is highly nocturnal and notoriously difficult to find. Proudfoot and his team have used band recovery data compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland to examine movements of the Northern Saw-whet Owl across eastern North America.

Proudfoot and his team compared mean banding-to-recovery distances of males, females, juveniles and adults that were recovered in the same banding year (demonstrating migration directionality) or the following banding year (demonstrating site/migration-route fidelity).

Banding-to-recovery directionality and frequency of NSWO movement between U.S. Migratory Flyways and sex-specific migration patterns in this species were also studied. Glenn Proudfoot received his Ph.D. in wildlife and fisheries science from Texas A&M University for his work on phylogeography of the Ferruginous Pygmy-owl. He has been chasing birds of prey for 40 years, concentrating on owl research for the past 20 years. His list of more than 30 publications in scientific journals crosses interdisciplinary boundaries in ornithology, entomology, parasitology, and population genetics. Refreshments will be served at 7 p.m. and the lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Meeting Room, across the hall from our usual venue. No registration is necessary. Bring re-usable mugs for beverages.  

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