Second Saturday: Shorebirds with Dr. Wayne Meyer

Long-billed Curlew

Every Spring and Autumn Hagerman NWR hosts thousands of shorebirds of 30 or more species. We’ll talk about the importance of shorebirds and the importance of NWRs to shorebirds. Then we’ll discuss some (certainly not all) of the different species that visit. We’ll learn how to tell the players apart, which isn’t always easy.

Dr. Wayne Meyer is Associate Professor of the Biology department at Austin College, where he has been teaching for 30 years. He started birding at 13 in Connecticut. In 1993 he finally achieved his life’s dream of being paid to look at birds when he joined the faculty of Austin College. He has birded both coasts of the U.S. extensively and now has spent a quarter century birding in Texas and Oklahoma. The proximity of Austin College to Hagerman NWR has made research on prairie birds easy and convenient and he has been studying song learning and singing in Painted Buntings for over a decade. Meyer is also a sought after speaker for Master Naturalist groups and a frequent speaker at the Friends of Hagerman NWR second Saturday programs.