Audubon Miami Valley invites you to join a virtual meeting with Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman on February 8 at 7:30 pm. To join the program, go to the Audubon Miami Valley website, click on Events and then Event Details and finally How to Attend where there is a link to the meeting.
Program – Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration
Speakers: Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman
Every spring, billions of birds sweep north, driven by instinct to return to their breeding grounds. This vast parade often goes unnoticed—except in a few places where these small travelers concentrate in big numbers. One such place is along the Lake Erie shoreline just east of Toledo, Ohio. There the peak of spring migration is so spectacular that it attracts bird watchers from around the globe, culminating in one of the biggest bird festivals anywhere. In this program based on his new book, Ohio naturalist, author, and artist, Kenn Kaufman, will describe the science and magic of spring bird migration through this region. His wife Kimberly will also join us with a brief update on the bird research, education, and conservation work at Black Swamp Bird Observatory.
Kenn Kaufman is an American author, artist, naturalist, and conservationist, known for his work on several popular field guides of birds and butterflies in North America. Kenn started birding from the age of six. At age sixteen he dropped out of high school and began hitchhiking around North America in pursuit of birds. Three years later, in 1973, he set the record, at that time, for the most North American bird species seen in one year while participating in a Big Year, a year-long birding competition. His cross-country birding journey, covering some eighty thousand miles, culminated in a memoir, Kingbird Highway. In 1992, he was given the Ludlow Griscom Award by the American Birding Association. Kaufman also received the ABA Roger Tory Peterson Award in 2008 for a “lifetime of achievements in promoting the cause of birding.”[8]
Kim Kaufman is the Executive Director of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory located at the entrance to McGee Marsh in northwest Ohio. BSBO organizes and hosts the Biggest Week in American Birding: a ten day birding festival timed to coincide with the peak of spring songbird migration. in northwest Ohio. Each spring, more than 90,000 birders descend on the area from all over the world including every state and 52 countries. BSBO is committed to education, research, and promoting conservation and economic development through birding.