Coming soon: Birdfair 2010

We’'ll be headed to Rutland in August for this year’s Birdfair—and we’d love to see you there as well. We’ll be in Marquee 4, on stands 27/28: stop by to renew your membership, pick up the latest copies of Neotropical Birding and Cotinga, check out our collection of back issues, or meet some of the club’s council members.

This year, we’ll also have our Annual General Meeting at the Birdfair. It will take place Saturday, 21 August, 2010 at 5:00 p.m., in Lecture Marquee 1. Before it starts, Hernan Casañas will present a brief talk on the enigmatic Hooded Grebe. Check our Events page for more details, and a downloadable copy of the meeting agenda. And plan to join us there!

New neotropical news stories posted

Check out the latest Neotropical News:

• 23 July 2010. Dead Penguins Wash Ashore in Brazil.
• 19 July 2010. Two More Brazilian IBAs Receive Protection.
• 19 July 2010. Rainforest Alliance Launches Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative Forum.
• 19 July 2010. The Nature Conservancy Publications and Documents Available Online.

Cotinga 32 is now online!

This year’s issue of Cotinga will be published in September, but you can already read many of the articles online. For the table of contents — and access to more than 20 articles — click here!

New North American Mailing Address

In an effort to decrease the time it takes to process North American queries and memberships, the Club now has a post office box in the United States. North American members are encouraged to use this address rather than the UK address to help us speed up our response times; we hope it will allow our in-country rep to quickly handle most of the requests. The new address is:

Neotropical Bird Club
PO Box 55
Cape May Point NJ 08212-0055
USA

Now shipped: Neotropical Birding 6

The latest issue of Neotropical Birding 6, packed with great articles, shipped this week to members the world over. In it, there are pieces on birding in the Brazilian Pantanal, northeastern Brazil, Chile and Argentina. There are details of where to find Stresemann's Bristlefront and where to look if you want to refind Kinglet Calyptura. There are the first-ever published photos of White-winged Potoo and a sorry tale of the plight of Hooded Grebe. And there’s our regular round-up of recent taxonomic changes, plus an identification workshop on Fiery Topaz. If you’re not already a member — or haven’t yet renewed your membership yet this year — click here to join (or rejoin) and receive this issue.

Neotropical Birding Lodges Network

The Neotropical Bird Club is planning to establish a ‘Neotropical birding lodges network’. Can you help — by telling us about birding lodges in Central/South America and the Caribbean?

We propose to establish a network of birding lodges across the Neotropics that have a shared interest in promoting bird conservation. Lodges will pay a modest annual membership fee, in exchange for which they will receive a membership certificate, copies of Neotropical Birding and Cotinga, and a series of advertising opportunities (e.g. on the Club's website and in Neotropical Birding).

However, we don’t want any old lodge in the network. We propose to focus on lodges recommended for inclusion by NBC members and friends (e.g. members of the Facebook group). This is where you come in.

Have you stayed in a good birding lodge in the Neotropics that you think we should invite to join our network? If so, please email the following details to ‘NBC.lodges@gmail.com’: country / lodge name / lodge website / contact name and email.

Now Available: Back issues of Neotropical Birding

Due to overwhelming demand from both members and non-members, the NBC council has elected to make individual back issues of Neotropical Birding (for those years prior to the current year and last year) available for sale for £9 each. The price includes shipping and handling, and there is no limit on the number of issues you can order. If you’ve missed an issue or two — or if you’d like to share a past issue with a friend — now’s your chance! To place an order, click here.

Helping on Neotropical Birding

Now that Neotropical Birding is well established, we are looking to add new members to our editorial team. If you have ideas for articles that should be commissioned, a flair for design, an eye for an image and/or expertise in copy-editing, please e-mail us at neotropical.birding-at-neotropicalbirdclub.org. (Replace -at- with @; we’re displaying the address this way to help us avoid unwanted spam.)

Photo request: shrike-tyrants Agriornis

Juan Ignacio Areta and colleagues are preparing an identification article on shrike-tyrants Agriornis for Neotropical Birding. To aid their research and for potential publication, please e-mail your photographs of this genus to neotropical.birding-at-neotropicalbirdclub.org. (Replace -at- with @; we’re displaying the address this way to help us avoid unwanted spam.) Please label your images with the species, location, date and your name.

NBC on Facebook

NBC now has its own Facebook Group, entitled Neotropical Bird Club. If you are a Facebook member, please join the group, post photos, and take part in discussions! The URL is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=31491408108