Monthly Meeting and Lecture
“Voyagers on the Open Sea – The Pelagic Birds of Florida” by Michael Brothers, Executive Director, Marine Science Center, Ponce Inlet, Fl
Date and Time
Tuesday, October 3, 7:00 p.m.
Program Overview
Michael Brothers has been studying Florida birds for the last 45 years and has been leading pelagic trips off the coast of Florida and Georgia for the last 12 years. This program will offer an introduction to the challenging pelagic birds of Florida and the attempts to unravel the dynamics of their occurrence and their relationship to the oceanic environments.
Black-capped Petrel, White-tailed Tropicbird, Bulwer’s Petrel, Manx Shearwater, Band-rumped Storm-Petrel – these are names that set a birder’s heart racing in Florida. The pelagic birds are one of the last frontiers of our understanding of Florida’s avifauna. These birds of the open ocean come from distant shores of the Arctic, remote islands of the Caribbean and South America, the coast of Europe, northwest Africa, and even islands off Antarctica. Great travelers, they pass by our shores largely unseen. The difficulties of offshore access, which limit the numbers of observers, are compounded by the challenges of identification. Our knowledge is often limited to brief glimpses of a shearwater or storm-petrel by coastal observers. Systematic studies of Florida’s oceanic birdlife are few.
Please enjoy this gallery of Pelagic Birds by Michael Brothers [flickr_set id=”72157689295055975″]
Come enjoy this informative program!
About Michael M. Brothers
Mr. Brothers is the Director of the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, Florida, where he has worked since 2004. He is the former director of museums in Florida and Georgia and has worked as a professional interpretive naturalist for over 40 years.
Mr. Brothers’s pelagic trips extend to the Gulf Stream and out 100 miles to the 3,000 foot deep canyons beyond the Gulf Stream. He has extensive natural resource and natural science interpretive experience, with specializations in the bird life and flora of Central Florida, and he has lead birding tours throughout Florida, the Okefenokee Swamp, the Galapagos Islands, Kenya, Machu Picchu and the Amazon. Mr. Brothers’s research specialty is in the coastal and oceanic birds of Florida. He is currently a member of the Florida Ornithological Society Records Committee, which evaluates reports of birds recorded in the wild in Florida and is responsible for updating the scientific record of Florida’s avifauna. He is also the Florida editor for the journal North American Birds.
More Meeting Information
Also at the meeting, our expert, Clive Pinnock will speak about the October Bird of the Month, Florida Grasshopper Sparrow.
Meeting and program is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for light refreshments, in rooms 101 and 102 at FAU Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, 6301 Summit Blvd (near Jog Road) in West Palm Beach. We look forward to seeing you there!
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