The female red-winged blackbird is a classic puzzler in any birding quiz.
A long-tailed manakin, photographed by Sandy Sorkin.
Our next Zoom Membership Meeting will be held Wednesday, August 12, at 7:30 pm.
An Online Quiz
with Rick Wright
Following up on our successful May quiz, join us for another evening of fun and information. Form an e-team or play by yourself as we challenge our brains and our memories on topics from ornithology to music to popular culture to birding history and lore.
No prizes, no entry fees, just the chance to lord it over your friends for a brief sweet while.
We are happy to welcome Victor Emanuel Nature Tours as a new Friend of the Montclair Bird Club's quizzes and newsletters.
Upcoming meetings
Wednesday, September 9, 2020:
Manakins and Microbes
Investigations into Avian Social Behavior and Gut Microbiota
The wire-tailed manakin is a lek-breeding neotropical bird well known for the display of territorial males and non-territorial “floaters,” in which two males engage in cooperative courtship displays.
Jennifer Houtz will discuss how altered testosterone levels influence the structure of the manakin social network. Jennifer will also introduce us to her current doctoral research on the relationship between gut bacteria, stress physiology, and social behavior in the semi-colonial tree swallow.
Jennifer Houtz is a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. A graduate of Millersville University with a BSc in Animal Behavior, she is the recipient of a Barry Goldwater Scholarship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her undergraduate research was on the social behavior of the wire-tailed manakin and the development of the European starling gut microbiome.
Recent meetings
May 2020: An Online Quiz, with Rick Wright.
June 2020: A Walk on Pipeline Road, by Sandy Sorkin.
July 2020: The Real James Bond, by Jim Wright.
