The *Queens County Bird Club Inc.* will be meeting at the Alley Pond Environmental Center, 228-06 Northern Blvd Douglaston, NY 11362 <http://goo.gl/8cnmjT> >Map of location< at 8:00 pm on Wednesday, February 18, 2015. Free admission. Refreshments served.
Public transportation users: Meeting location is one mile from Bayside LIRR station; you can either walk, take Q12 bus, or use car service located at station. Our speaker will be Rick Wright presenting "Peppereaters: A Field Guide to the Toucans of Central Europe" No, there aren't any toucans in the Old World--no wild ones, at least. But over the centuries, the natural historians of central Europe have taken the ramphastids to heart as the ultimate emblems of the exotic. Join Rick Wright for an amusing and richly illustrated tour through the earliest literature of the toucans, aracaris, and other big-nosed birds of the American tropics. Rick Wright lives, birds, and writes in Bloomfield, New Jersey, with his wife, Alison Beringer. Rick's current book projects include the sparrow volume in the Peterson Reference Guide series and a study of hummingbird collecting in early modern France. His blog, Birding New Jersey and the World, is filled with trip reports, book and art reviews, and reflections on the history and the future of birding. A native of southeast Nebraska, Rick studied French, German, Philosophy, and Life Sciences at the University of Nebraska before making a detour to Harvard Law School. He took the Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University in 1990, then spent a dozen years as an academic, holding successive appointments as Assistant Professor of German at the University of Illinois, Reader in Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, and Associate Professor of Medieval Studies at Fordham University. Rick is currently the book review editor for Birding and The ABA Blog and a popular lecturer at birding events around the world. He leads Birds and Art tours in Spain, France, Italy, and Germany, and intends to expand this program over the next couple of years. Nancy Tognan Vice President: *Queens County Bird Club Inc*. See http://www.qcbirdclub.org/ for more information on trips, speakers, and other events! See our 'Birding Maps & Locations' page for directions to and info about many local birding hotspots * QCBC is a tax exempt, charitable organization {501c3}. * -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
