September 2022 Meeting

Tue, September 6, 7:30 pm
Blue Spruce County Park Lodge
Speaker: Tom and Jan Kuehl

Description

Take a Safari Trip to Southern Africa with Tom and Jan Kuehl, who were on the Rockjumpers Birding Tour trip through the Southern African nations of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. Tom will present a photographic tour through the arid savanna, dry highlands, and coastal deserts of Namibia; the wetlands of the Okavango inland delta of Botswana; and a visit to Victoria Falls (one of the top natural wonders of the world) in Zimbabwe. The tour tallied 367 bird, 50 mammal, and 9 reptile species; and Tom will share his photographic highlights from among the most spectacular of these species.

Although the long drive from home in Murrysville limits their participation, Tom and Janet are longtime Todd Bird Club members, as well as being members of many other Western Pennsylvania bird and nature clubs and Audubon chapters. Tom and Janet became avid birders in the late 1990s and are prolific participants in citizen science projects -- Christmas Bird Counts, Winter Raptor Surveys, and Breeding Bird Surveys (now retired); they served as regional coordinators in the Second Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas. Tom is the Westmoreland County Compiler for the PA Birds Journal and served two-year terms as Vice-President and President of the Pennsylvania Society of Ornithology. In retirement Tom serves on the Board of Save Our Allegheny Ridges, an organization that assists communities that are trying to stop industrial wind development on ridgetop locations, and Janet is a Volunteer Naturalist at Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve and a hawk counter at the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch.