Dr. Robert Chipley, Director of the Important Bird Area Program for American Bird Conservancy, will speak at the Anne Arundel Bird Club meeting set for this Friday, April 1, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. in the Conference room of the DNR Tawes Building on Taylor Avenue in Annapolis.  Dr. Chipley is the lead author of the book, The 500 Globally Most Important Bird Areas in the United States.   

 AMERICAN BIRD CONSERVANCY'S IBA PROGRAM: IDENTIFYING IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS FOR CONSERVATION. 
  Dr. Robert "Chip" Chipley will discuss the origins and the purposes of the Important Bird Areas Program and how American Bird Conservancy went about choosing, describing, and publishing the book on the 500 Globally Most Important Bird Areas in the United States. Using examples from the book, Dr. Chipley will talk about some of the most pressing conservation problems facing these areas and which areas might be defined as most at risk. He will make particular reference to Important Bird Areas around the Chesapeake Bay and on the Eastern Shore. Dr. Chipley has been Director of the Important Bird Areas Program for American Bird Conservancy since 1998. For over 20 years he worked with science programs at The Nature Conservancy, particularly in building the network of State Natural Heritage Programs. He has a Ph.D. from Cornell in biology, having done his thesis work on the wintering ecology of the Blackburnian Warbler in Colombia. He retains a keen interest in the bird fauna of Latin America and the Caribbean and has published on his research in the British Virgin Islands. At present he is involved with a project at American Bird Conservancy to encourage the use of silvipasture in Latin America as a way of providing better habitat for resident and migrant birds. 

  Posted for Gerald Winegrad, Program Chair
  by Sue Ricciardi
  Arnold, MD