Is our fascination and engagement with wildlife fueled more by familiarity with the individual or the entire species? How about both? Our opening Monthly Meeting of the season explores how one determined wildlife field biologist and a single Bald Eagle's uniqueness brought a community together, solved a mystery and ultimately...

The Washington Ornithological Society (WOS) is pleased to announce our next Monthly Meeting: on Monday, November 3, Ashley Martens will present "Birds of Washington's Old Growth Forests.” All forest stages have an important ecological role to play. The old-growth stage of a forest is especially important because of its unique...

With the suite of AI-powered apps such as Merlin and iNaturalist we are quickly able to identify birds, plants and animals. We may take online or in-person courses to learn about sparrows, shorebirds or hawks. But what does it take to actually learn and retain the knowledge that enriches our...

The tiny, narrow-winged Vaux’s Swift is found only in the western hemisphere. In the words of Mr. Swift - Schwitters, our speaker, “Because of its anatomy, a swift is unable to perch and so needs a rough, vertical surface to hook its claws into; it then puts its tail down...

Note: This is the February monthly meeting but it is being held a week earlier than usual, because Monthly Meeting volunteers are out of town on the normal date.

Madison Mayfield on "A Different Kind of Life List: A Career Painting, Curating & Taxidermying Birds" What goes on in natural history museums like the one at the Burke? And why have them? Filled with far more than just a lot of "stuffed animals,” these collections are time-capsule libraries of...

Madagascar, a Place Like Nowhere Else Combined Meeting: In-Person at UW Center for Urban Horticulture and via Xoom

Brian Zinke on "Lights out for Birds: How Reducing Nighttime Light Saves Migratory Species" Each year, millions of birds migrate across our region under the cover of darkness. But increasing levels of artificial light at night are disorienting and draw birds into cities where they face fatal collisions with buildings,...

Members' Photo Night will take place via Zoom with each person presenting their work (remotely: no in-person meeting).

Western Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) are brilliant blue songbirds found in a variety of western U.S. habitats.  On the west side of the Cascades, they historically had relied on mature Garry oak woodlands: because of habitat loss (old oak trees with natural cavities), the Western Bluebird is listed as a "Species of Greatest Conservation Need.”...