Registration Form (print and mail)
© Janis Paseka
The NOU Fall Meeting will be held in Imperial Nebraska at the Imperial Inn on September 13-15, 2019. Mid-September means migration and the migrant traps in southwestern Nebraska have the potential to be productive for passerines and waterbirds. Enders Reservoir State Recreation Area, Champion Lake and Rock Creek State Recreation Area are just some of the sites that will be visited during the field trips. Lake McConaughy and Swanson Reservoir are both about an hour drive from Imperial. All of these sites are far enough west where there is the potential for a few western species.
A block of rooms are held at the Imperial Inn, 748 12th St, Imperial, NE 866-711-5994. It is reccommended that you get your reservations made soon as rooms in Imperial are limited. Other lodging can be found on the Imperial website at http://www.imperial-ne.com/lodging.php . Enders Reservoir SRA has a nice campground with restrooms and showers and is about 10 miles from Imperial for anyone wanting to camp.
Programs
On Friday night Anita Breckbill’s will have a presentation on Olivier Messiaen.
For the Birds: Messiaen and Birdsong Transcription
Can you imitate birdsong? How about on an instrument? The French composer Olivier Messiaen went into the fields and woods to write down birdsong, starting at a young age, and used the transcriptions in his music. Some of his compositions consist only of birdsongs transformed into instrumental music. This presentation looks at the challenges that Messiaen faced in transcribing what he heard (unclear pitches, buzzes, complexity, pitch beyond our range of hearing, speed beyond our ability to reproduce, timbre, and scale), and the techniques he used to do the transcriptions. In the course of the presentation, we’ll hear recorded birdsong, a flutist playing some of Messiaen’s birdsong live, and excerpts from Messiaen’s compositions. European blackbirds, Western Meadowlarks, Song Sparrows, Redstarts, Shrikes, and other birds, European and American, are on the menu.
The presentation will be followed by Robin leading us in our own attempts at mimicking birds. Can you whistle, sing, grunt, or otherwise copy any birdsong?
On Saturday night John Vanderpoel will have a presentation that will include a mixture of photos and readings from his new book Full Chase Mode: Big Year Birding in North America” and will include selected stories about some of the legends of the birding world, plus new players such as the Musketeers, and even the poorly regarded, but infamous Rock Dove Tours.
John Vanderpoel is a lifelong birder and the creator of the critically acclaimed identification video series the Advanced Birding Video Series with Jon Dunn that includes The Large Gulls of North America, The Small Gulls of North America, and Hummingbirds of North America. John lives in Niwot, Colorado with his wife, Linda.
In 2011, John set off to attempt a North American Big Year. His whirlwind adventure took him to the edges of the continent. He sailed the high seas with the Admiral of the Atlantic, the Queen Bee of the Western Sea and a modern day mystic. He raced ATVs over the stones of St. Lawrence Island with the Czar and up a snow-covered pass on Adak Island in the middle of December with a frontier man. Along the way, he tallied more North American birds in one year than he’d seen in his entire life and met scores of interesting people. He wasn’t searching for the meaning of life – he was too busy living it. For three hundred and sixty five incredible days.
You do not need to be an NOU member to attend!