Saturday, March 11, 2023, 10 am

Meeting is both in Person and available by Zoom

Zoom open 9:45 am, Business Meeting 10–11 am, Keynote Speaker 11–12 am

This event is FREE but registration is required to receive Zoom link.

Please Register with Sandy Graham, sandygraham1951@gmail.com

Keynote Speaker: Peter Sherrington, Research Director, Rocky Mountain Eagle Research Foundation

AGENDA

1. Apologies
2. Acceptance of Agenda
3. Minutes of 2022 AGM and Matters Arising
4. President’s Report (Deanna Cottrell)
5. Treasurer’s Report (Claire Bourret)—Including appointment of member auditors for next year.
6. Count Coordinator’s Report (Rosemary Power)
7. Research Director’s Report (Peter Sherrington)
8. Board Elections (Deanna Cottrell)—Nominations from the floor are invited and accepted. (Please note that you have to be a member in good standing with RMERF to vote.) A Slate of Candidates is being finalized.
9. Any Other Business
10. Adjournment

Keynote Speaker

PETER SHERRINGTON

Research Director, RMERF

Talk Title: Cimate Change–working to understand impacts on seasonal movement of birds in Canada

Peter Sherrington

Peter has spent a lifetime studying and appreciating the natural world. His interests span from Geology to Lepidopterology (study of butterflies); but his primary focus and contributions have come in the study of birds and, most notably perhaps, the study of Raptor Migration.

In 1992, Peter and Desmond Allen became first to discover and recognize the magnitude and importance of the mass movement of Golden Eagles, and other migrants along the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains. Prior to this, North American Golden Eagles were thought to be largely sedentary, like most other populations of this bird around the world.

At the time, Peter found himself well positioned to apply himself to research this newly discovered phenomena. A life-long ornithologist with a dedication to recognizing and understanding patterns and trends in our environment, he quietly began a research project that has produced a continuous data spanning now over thirty years. Additionally, as a PhD Candidate in Micropaleontology at the University of West Wales in the late 1960s, he had honed his understanding of the scientific method which would form the basis for the thoughtful and systematic gathering and analyzing of the data collected through thousands of hours of field observation by himself and others.

From 1992 to 2007, Peter continued to be the primary driver of the biannual raptor count. He spent much of these formative years at his ‘office’ in Hay Meadows at the Mount Lorette observation site, from September to November and from February to April, usually from sun-up to sun-down. Although in many of these early days he observed alone, slowly he was joined by a stalwart cast of other dedicated observers.  Always looking to add to the understanding of the migration patterns, he moved his observation site to Plateau Mountain for a short and windy time. In 2007, Peter and his late wife Barbara relocated to Beaver Mines in southern Alberta where he set up an observation site on the south end of the Livingston Range at a spot he dubbed Piitaistakis or Place of Eagles. After a few years of walking up the very large hill to access this site, he came to the realization that his house was in fact very conveniently situated directly on one of the Eagle fly-ways.

Around 2011, Vicki Ridge, just down the road from his door step, became his primary observation site and then finally, over the last three years, to his living room and its unobstructed view of the eagle flyway.

From 1992 to present, Peter Sherrington has been meticulously compiling, analyzing, and sharing the massive data set that pours in from his own observations, from the team at Mount Lorette, and from other observation sites such as the one at Steeples in the Rocky Mountain Trench. He writes migration reports and has given countless presentations on the findings and connotations of his research to technical societies, academic groups, school classes, and nature enthusiasts. Peter also sits as the Research Director on the Rocky Mountain Eagle Research Foundation Board.