Bellevue Fall Field Days

The 2012 NOU Fall Field Days was held in conjunction with the Inland Bird Banding Association meeting at Fontenelle Forest Nature Center in Bellevue on October 26–28. The meeting, organized by Betty Grenon and Rick Schmid, drew a total of 104 attendees, including 33 members of the Inland Bird Banding Association. On Friday evening, Phil Swanson\u27s photographic presentation Welcome to Omaha . . . It\u27s for the Birds included a brief history of Omaha, an overview of area birding hotspots, and photos of many of the birds which can be seen in the area. Following the presentation, a group led by Al Reyer went to Hitchcock Nature Center north of Crescent, Iowa, to view Saw-whet Owl banding conducted by Jerry Toll and Sandy Reinken. Field trips on Saturday were led by Phil Swanson, Betty Grenon, Clem Klaphake, Elliott Bedows, and Loren and Babs Padelford and included the following destinations: Fontenelle Forest, Neale Woods, Nathan\u27s Lake, Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge, Schilling Wildlife Management Area, Arbor Lodge State Park, Prairie Owl Lake, Hitchcock Nature Center, Lake Manawa State Park, Walnut Creek Lake, and Wehrspann Lake. Saturday afternoon presentation topics included the Nebraska Breeding Bird Atlas II by Wayne Mollhoff, diurnal raptor banding by Jerry Toll, Saw-whet Owl banding by Sandy Reinken, MAPS banding by Rick Schmid, and raptor rehabilitation by Denise Lewis. On Saturday evening, Neal Ratzlaff appeared in the guise of Spencer Baird, first curator at the Smithsonian Institution and presented a program entitled \u27\u27Names for Birds—Physicians, Women, and the Smithsonian. His program touched on much of the history of ornithology in the United States in the mid-1800s and looked especially at the discovery, description, and naming of Grace\u27s, Virginia\u27s, Lucy\u27s, and Blackburnian Warblers