Monday, January 18, 2010

Registration is Now Open for HMANA's 2010 Conference

The 2010 Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) conference will be hosted by Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory held in Duluth, Minnesota April 15-18, 2010. Positioned at the southwestern tip of magnificent Lake Superior, Duluth offers a mix of great birding, picturesque scenery and a terrific spring raptor migration. April birding in Northern Minnesota offers a wide variety of boreal species, winter specialties, northern owls and spring migrants as the convergence of three different biomes maximizes the number of different species to be seen.

The 2010 conference will feature scientific presentations, informative posters, entertaining keynote speakers, a silent auction, fantastic northern-specialty field trips as well as free shuttle service from the conference site to Hawk Ridge's Spring Hawk Count site!

Our conference will open on Thursday afternoon with our annual board meeting and membership meeting followed by a Welcome Social and introductions. Friday and Saturday will be filled with speakers, presentations and field trips. We have programming scheduled from sunrise to sunset each day, and we'll offer the same field trips on Friday AND Saturday so you don’t have to choose between the speakers you want to hear and the birds you want to see!

There is an open call for papers and posters on our conference website. If you're interested in presenting your work at this conference, please visit http://www.hmana.org/ or http://www.hawkridge.org/ for submission details.

You may register online, by mail or by phone. Field trips and banquets are optional, so you can customize your conference weekend to suit your greatest interests. Evening banquets will feature delicious food (vegetarian options are available) and fascinating speakers. We are excited to announce that L. David Mech, Senior Research Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey will recap his career of 50 years of wolf research at our Saturday evening banquet!

Detailed conference schedule, open call for papers, registration forms, lodging/travel information and other conference information are available at our website, accessible through either http://www.hmana.org/ or http://www.hawkridge.org/ (click on the conference logo). For more information, contact Conference Coordinator Julie O’Connor at HMANA2010@aol.com or 218-348-2291.