This meeting and presentation took place entirely online via Zoom.
At 7:00 pm, Treasurer and Past President Debbie Mullins called the Society meeting to order.
Debbie made the following announcements:
This is the last meeting of this program year.
The next regular members meeting will be held on September 9, 2025.
The Linnaean-organized Great Gull Island birdathon was held this past weekend and was a great success. A total of nine teams and individuals competed. There had been some high migration nights, so there was an abundance of birds. Results of the birdathon will be posted on the website later this month or in early June.
Despite the hazards of brightly illuminated buildings that confront migrating birds, the New York City Council failed to pass the Lights Out legislation that would require buildings to reduce exterior lighting during bird migration. Debbie noted that as individuals, we can all help mitigate the impact of light on birds by closing our blinds and turning off exterior lights on high migration nights. The BirdCast bird migration website provides nightly updates of migration intensity in local areas.
Debbie next welcomed eleven new members to the Linnaean Society:
Maureen Crilly
Daniel Deutsch
Anne Green
Anita Keire
Jessica Kirk
Scott Klavan
Mike Maxfield
Henar Minguez Nebreda
Jessica Newman
Concetta Pilotto
Joan Simpson Klavan
She invited all attendees who are not members to join, explaining that membership information can be found on the Society’s website at www.linnaeannewyork.org.
At 7:03 pm, Debbie turned to the lecture program and invited Vice President of Programming Karen Becker to introduce the night’s speaker, Judith Mirembe, a bird guide and researcher working in Uganda. She founded Shoebill Watch Uganda, a non-profit organization focused on protecting the Shoebill and other species. She is the Pioneer Chairperson and a founding member of the Uganda Women Birders Club, the editor of a newsletter about birding in Uganda called the Birdwatch, and she has worked with Nature Uganda as the research and monitoring coordinator of Ugandan bird populations.
Lecture: “In the World of Shoebills: The King of the African Wetlands,” presented by Judith Mirembe
Judith Mirembe joined the Society’s meeting from Uganda, where local time was 2:00 am. She began her talk by introducing the audience to the Shoebill, a bird that is endemic to a limited range in tropical central Africa—in Uganda and adjacent countries. She described these remarkable birds, which are classified as a monotypic family in the pelican order, and supplemented her commentary with photographs and videos. Though its plumage is mainly gray, the Shoebill is an exotic-looking bird with an enormous bill of unusual shape. It is large, standing around five feet tall with a wingspan almost twice its height and weighing between 10 and 15 pounds.
The Shoebill’s habitat is in low oxygenated freshwater wetlands with floating vegetation that is strong enough to support the bird’s weight. Ms. Mirembe spoke about the bird’s foraging habits. It waits motionless for long periods of time until a lungfish (its most common prey) comes up to breathe. Then the Shoebill lunges for it, crushing the fish with its powerful bill, and swallows it whole.
She also talked about the bird’s breeding. Nest building starts near the end of the rainy season, when the water level is dropping and dry patches are exposed. One to three eggs are laid, though she has usually seen only one. She said that in Uganda only about 30% of chicks survive beyond the egg stage, and only about 40% of the chicks fledge; this phenomenon is worrying and not fully understood. Some possible factors include the pressure from warming temperatures due to climate change, resulting in habitat loss; wetlands conversion for agriculture and other development; and the poaching of eggs and chicks to supply the international illegal wildlife trade (the Shoebill is listed under Article 2 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES).
Ms. Mirembe concluded with a mention of the International Single Species Action Plan for the Conservation of the Shoebill, issued in 2013. The Plan is directed at all nations where Shoebills have been seen. It summarizes what is known about Shoebills, and identifies the information that is still needed to help protect the species from further decline. (The current population is estimated at between 5,000 and 8,000 birds and is classified as “Vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN). She noted that the Plan was scheduled to be revisited every ten years, but this has not yet happened, and many of the recommendations from 2013 have not been implemented due to inadequate funding.
At 7:41 pm, Vice President of Programming Karen Becker thanked Judith Mirembe for her talk about a fascinating bird that lives in an interesting part of the world. She then hosted the Q&A session. There were many questions, some specific to Shoebills, others to birding in Uganda and conservation. When someone observed that there seems to be a strong community of female birding guides in Uganda, she recounted the history of the country’s evolution from barely any women birders and guides to the formation of the Uganda Women’s Birders’ Club in 2013, and the support of the Ugandan Wildlife Authority and international travel companies that enabled local women to be trained and mentored so they could participate in Uganda’s ecotourism economy.
At the conclusion of the Q&A, Karen Becker thanked Judith Mirembe again for an incredible talk sharing her research and passion for Shoebills and about women in birding, and at 8:17 pm the meeting was adjourned.
Judith Mirembe’s presentation and the Q&A session have been recorded in their entirety, along with Past President Debbie Mullin’s opening meeting remarks. The recording is available for viewing on the Linnaean Society of New York website under the dropdown menu: Programs/Watch/ and on the Society’s YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@linnaeanny/videos
Respectfully submitted by Lisa Kroop, Recording Secretary