Date: 10/12/26 10:45 am From: Laura Stenzler <lms9...> Subject: [cayugabirds-l] Cayuga Bird Club October 12, 2026 meeting -TONIGHT
Hi all,
Just a reminder that TONIGHT, Oct 12, is the next Cayuga Bird Club meeting at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The meeting is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:45pm for social time AND a book signing with tonight's speaker, Lorna Gibson. Books will be available for purchase at the Wild Birds Unlimited store before the meeting, which starts with a reading of the basin bird list at 7:20. Club business begins at 7:30pm, followed by the speaker's presentation starting around 8:00pm and ending by 9:00pm. Please note that we will be holding our election of Club officers and voting on this year's budget.
Come hear our speaker Lorna Gibson, PhD, Material Scientist and avid birder, in her presentation: "Birds Up Close - A renowned engineer reveals the marvel of how birds work"
Have you ever wondered how birds work? Lorna Gibson’s new book, Birds Up Close: An Engineer Explores Their Hidden Wonders, draws on her experience as a professor of engineering at MIT and as a lifelong birder, to describe how birds work from an engineering perspective. Feathers, bones, bills, eggs, flight: all come in for scrutiny, sometimes at the microscopic scale, sometimes at a more macroscopic scale.
Join Lorna as she shares highlights from the book on how microscopic structures in bird bills and tongues allow woodpeckers to capture insects deep within the holes they drill, hummingbirds to collect nectar from flowers, sandpipers to sense prey in wet sand, and phalaropes to draw droplets of plankton-containing water into their bills (no lips, can’t suck).”
About the Speaker: Lorna Gibson is the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT’s top award for undergraduate teaching. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. She has always loved nature and getting outside to walk, bicycle and bird.
Lorna will also be signing copies of her book (some copies available at Wild Birds Unlimited) at the Lab at 6:45.
Hope to see you there.
Colleen Richards, Corresponding Secretary
Laura Stenzler, Program Coordinator
Cayuga Bird Club
www.cayugabirdclub.org
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