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Please join us for our monthly chapter meeting on Monday, February 9, 2026 at 7:00 PM. Stan Senner will be our speaker presenting his talk: The Fascinating Lives of Shorebirds and Where to Find Them in MontanaThe migrations of North American shorebirds span two hemispheres from Arctic Alaska, Canada, and Russia in the north to New Zealand and the tip of South America in the south. Famed author and naturalist Peter Matthiessen called them “wind birds” and wrote eloquently about the “wistful signal of their voices down the long coastlines of the world.” Fortunately, there are opportunities in Montana to see 25 or more species of shorebirds and experience their amazing journeys. Stan Senner will share stories and insights about their fascinating life histories and movements from Alaska to Chile and present the results of three years of spring and fall shorebird surveys at 19 sites across Montana, including by Five Valleys Audubon Society volunteers around Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge. Populations of many shorebird species are still abundant but in decline, and Stan will discuss the threats they face and why they are so vulnerable in a rapidly changing world.
Stan Senner is an ornithologist and conservationist with a passion for shorebirds. He retired in 2021 as National Audubon’s Vice President for Bird Conservation and previously directed Audubon’s Alaska state office for 10 years. He earned a master’s degree in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and spent seven years coordinating state-federal restoration planning and science following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. His studies of shorebirds have focused on Western Sandpipers and Dunlins and, mostly recently, Surfbirds. He received Lifetime Achievement Awards for his contributions to bird conservation from the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Group in 2019 and American Ornithological Society in 2023. Stan and his wife Pat lived in Alaska for 23 years and now make their home in Missoula.
The meeting will be held in Room 110 in the Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB) on the University of Montana campus. The building lies on the south end of campus on Beckwith Avenue between Maurice and Mansfield avenues. You also have the option to watch the meeting over Zoom:
https://umontana.zoom.us/j/94514827557
Meeting ID: 945 1482 7557
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University of Montana, 1060 Mansfield Ave, Missoula, MT 59812, United States
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