The Midwest Birding Symposium 2011: Welcome!

We've loaded clips from the following 2011 speakers:


We'll load clips from other MBS speaker presentations in the following months. Keep checking this page for updates!

Also, check out this movie clip:

MBS Speaker Topics and Clips

Alvaro Jaramillo

2011 MBS Topic: Birding outside the Box Part II—Birding identification like a Pro!

Most bird identification lectures focus on field marks, and the specifics of separating Species A from Species B. Few ask exactly how we identify birds. What is our brain going through in order to do this? How does our brain get tripped up during bird identification? Have you ever encountered the "leaf bird" the "branch bird" or, worst of all, "the plastic bag snowy owl?" Why do experts identify birds almost without thinking, while the rest of us need to struggle? Are they different from the rest of us, or are there tricks?

The truth is that bird identification is pretty tricky stuff, but our brains are wired to shortcut much of the thinking involved in doing it—the trick is training yourself to do it like a pro. That is the aim of this presentation: a lighthearted but informative explanation of how the heck the pros do it.

(Affiliation: Alvaro's Adventures, Birding and Nature Tours)

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Jim McCormac

2011 MBS Topic: Birders Going Beyond Birds

Birds don’t operate in a vacuum. It takes plants, insects, mammals and more to stoke their fires. The intricacies of ecology that cascade up to a gorgeous yellow-throated vireo or fiercely predatory short-eared owl are often so incredible it verges on fantasy. Knowledge of these relationships fuels the imagination and adds wonder to even the common. Learning bird ID and names is great, but it’s just the beginning – learning what makes birds tick opens an entirely new dimension.

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Bridget Stutchbury

2011 MBS Topic: The Bird Dectective: Investigating the Private Lives of Birds

Bridget Stutchbury will speak about her recent book, The Private Lives of Birds, and will explain why some birds readily divorce their partners, why females sneak copulations with neighboring males, and why mothers sometimes desert their babies. She will reveal her latest research that uses geolocators to track individual wood thrushes and purple martins as they migrate to Central and South America for the winter.

(Affiliation: Dept. of Biology, York University)

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Julie Zickefoose

2011 MBS Topic: The Bluebird Effect

Theodore Roosevelt said that to truly know someone, you had to share a tent with them. If Julie Zickefoose can claim nothing else, she is intimately familiar with a number of different species of birds. In many cases, this is because she has cared for them when they are orphaned or injured. Her upcoming book, "The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds" is an illuminated memoir of a lifetime spent living with, healing and nurturing birds. In this illustrated talk, she'll share the experience of being a mother to hummingbirds, chimney swifts, waxwings and bluebirds, among many others. The job is not in high demand—the dawn-to-dusk hours and monotony, with feedings every half-hour—rule out many applicants. But the rewards are rich. The reward is in understanding how a bird thinks, how it develops, and how it might react to any given situation. It's an understanding so deep that it goes beyond words. That empathy with wild birds is her pay for a job very few choose to take on. That, and the stories that come out of the experience—stories begging to be shared.

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MBS Movies

The 2011 MBS: Highlights

This iMovie video created by Ann Oliver showcases all the highlights from the 2011 MBS. Click on the image above to start the movie (hosted in Facebook).

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