Ohio State Scientist to Speak at Midwest Birding Symposium

COLUMBUS, Ohio € Ohio State University wildlife ecologist Amanda Rodewald, an expert on how land management affects bird populations and communities, especially in urban areas and on shade-grown coffee plantations, will present Singing the Blues: The Challenge of Conserving the Cerulean Warbler at the 2009 Midwest Birding Symposium, Sept. 17-20 in Lakeside, Ohio.

Organizers expect hundreds of birdwatchers to attend the conference, which was last held in Ohio in 1999.

An associate professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources (http://senr.osu.edu/), Rodewald is one of 23 speakers slated.

Shell discuss the challenges of conserving neotropical migratory birds € ones that winter in Mexico, the Caribbean, South America or Central America and breed in summer in the United States or Canada at 2 p.m. on Sept. 19.

She„¢ll use the declining cerulean warbler  named for the males sky-blue color and ranked as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “species of concern€ as an example of how research and conservation efforts can be coordinated.

She studies avian ecology and conservation in urban landscapes, forest-bird conservation in managed forests, and the importance of shade-grown coffee plantations to migratory birds as a member of the schools Terrestrial Wildlife Ecology Laboratory (http://twel.osu.edu/).

She holds an appointment with Ohio States Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) as well.

The magazine Bird Watchers Digest, the Ohio Ornithological Society and the Lakeside Association will co-host the conference.

Birdwatcher and Tony- and Emmy-award-winning actress Jane Alexander; Kenn Kaufman, author of Kingbird Highway and the Kaufman Field Guide series; and David Sibley, author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds and the new The Sibley Guide to Trees, will be among the other speakers.

Call 800-879-2473, ext. 314, e-mail mbsinfo@birdwatchersdigest.com or go to http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/ for more information.

OARDC (http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/) is the research arm of Ohio States College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and is the largest university agbioscience research center in the United States.

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