Schedule
Friday, September 26, 2025
1 PM – 3 PM – Conservation Project
3:30 PM – Arrival Field Trip
4 PM – Registration Opens (Vendors display their wares.)
5:30 – 8:00 PM – Social (cash bar and snacks)
6 PM – Annual Business Meeting and Festival Announcements
7:30 PM – Nocturnal field trip departs from Delta parking lot
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Breakfast on your own
6:30 AM – 11:30 AM Field Trips (times vary)
Noon – 6:30 PM Vendors display their wares
1:00 – 1:45 PM
Shelly Eshleman
Traveling with Towhees
Eastern Towhees are declining, but little is known about their migratory pathways and patterns. Using the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, we were able to record the first migratory pathways of Eastern Towhees from 8 different tagging locations, in four different states, to better understand the full annual cycle ecology of this species. This talk will focus on the differences in migration strategies among eastern and western populations and where Eastern Towhees breeding in Pennsylvania spend the winter.
Shelly Eshleman is the Motus Avian Research Coordinator at Willistown Conservation Trust and a PhD student at the University of Delaware. Her research follows birds throughout the year to better understand their movement patterns. As someone who grew up in Lancaster County, she is particularly passionate about conserving Pennsylvanian birds.
1:45 – 2:30 PM
Daniel Klem, Jr.
Bird-window collisions: an updated review
Daniel Klem, Jr. is Sarkis Acopian Professor of Ornithology and Conservation Biology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Among other diverse avian investigations, for 51 years (more than half a century) and continuing to the present, he studies, writes, and teaches about the threat that sheet glass and plastic pose to birds. No other scientist comprehensively has studied and published research results documenting and evaluating the means to prevent this human-associated avian mortality factor. He is motivated by available and growing evidence that bird-window collisions are an important wildlife conservation, building industry, legal, and animal welfare issue for birds and people worldwide. His continuing goal is to make the human-built environment safe for birds. His latest contributions explaining and providing solutions for the window threat to birds is a new book (2021): Solid Air, Invisible Killer: Saving Billions of Birds from Windows, and a recently published scientific peer-reviewed article in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology: Evidence, consequences, and angle of strike of bird-window collisions that quantitatively reveals that minimally 1.28 billion to 3.46 billion birds annually are killed striking windows in the U.S. alone, billions worldwide.
2:30-3:15 PM – Break and vendor time (snacks and drinks)
3:15 – 4:00 PM
Paul Guris
Mid-Atlantic Pelagics: Where? When? What?
The offshore Pelagic zone represents the most underexplored birding opportunity in North America. Knowledge of species’ range and occurrence is shifting but much more slowly than on land where an army of birders is out in the field all year long. This program is an introduction to the different pelagic zones and seasons in the Mid-Atlantic region, the birds and other creatures that can be found there, and for those who have never been, an introduction to just how pelagic trips operate. It covers what can be expected, changes that have been noted, and some of the surprises found over the decades.
Paul A. Guris has been a birder, angler, and nature enthusiast for over 50 years. His first trip on a boat in saltwater was during his mother’s 3rd trimester and he boarded his first organized pelagic trip at age 15. In 2002 there was a lack of organized pelagics trips so, with the urging and invaluable help of his wife, he started See Life Paulagics which ran trips mostly from New York to Delaware for 18 years. Since closing SLP he has worked closely with several operators in NY and NJ to keep pelagic opportunities and discoveries alive.
4:00 PM – Break and vendor time
5:30 – 8:00 PM – Social and cash bar
6:30 PM – Dinner begins
7:00 PM – Presentation of Awards, Checklist, Speaker
Keynote speaker: Holly Merker
Holly Merker
Ornitherapy: The Power of Birding
In today’s fast-paced digital world, birding offers a vital escape, while supporting mental and physical well-being. Research shows that time spent in nature and around birds can actively reduce stress, depression, and anxiety, while helping build a stronger heart and immune system.
Within the program we’ll delve into our personal connections to birds, learn how to maximize the wellness benefits of birding, and cover the latest research surrounding the positive impact of wild birds on human wellbeing.
Holly Merker is a professional birding guide, award-winning author, podcaster, and lecturer who provides nature-based wellness programs for people of all ages. Combining backgrounds in art therapy, nature and forest therapy, wellness counseling, mindfulness mentoring, and bird identification, she is a global advocate for the practice of Mindful Birding. Holly has co-authored two books which guide readers into optimizing the wellness benefits birds provides us, including the award-winning Ornitherapy: For Your Mind, Body, and Soul (Crossley Books, 2021), and The Power of Birdwatching (Die Kraft Der Vogel Beobachtung, Freya verlag, 2023 – available in Europe only). She is also co-host and co-producer of the Mindful Birding Podcast and is the founder of the Mindful Birding Network.
Dedicated to bird conservation, Holly has been the state coordinator and lead reviewer for eBird in Pennsylvania since 2005, was a two-term voting member and Chair of the Pennsylvania Ornithological Records Committee, a PSO Board Member, and Chair of the PSO Education Committee. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the Finch Research Network, Wild Bird Feeding Institute’s Research Foundation, and the Frontiers in Ornithology Association.
In 2022, Holly was honored to be the recipient of the ABA Conservation and Education Award given by the American Birding Association for her work in both those areas involving birds.
In her free time, Holly spends every possible moment practicing Ornitherapy, which she credits in helping defeat breast cancer, restoring her health mentally and physically.
Sunday, September 28, 2025
6:30 AM – Field trips (times vary)
