The following steps are for any member who wants to organize an event/outing for the FNC:
Step 1. Check the meetings page and make sure there are no other events/outings planned on the date you are planning your event.
Step 2. Fill out and submit our form for events/outings.
Step 3. Wait for a response from the executive.
The reason for this process is to make sure that all events/outings are authorized by the FNC for insurance purposes. Also, to make sure events/outings do not overlap.
.
November 6 - the speaker will be Dr Tony Diamond
Title: Seabirds in a warming ocean: 30 years of research on Machias Seal Island.
Machias Seal Island is a small peat-skimmed rock positioned where the Gulf of Maine meets the Bay of Fundy. It has been a Migratory Bird Sanctuary since 1944, and Canadian jurisdiction is still challenged by the U.S. My lab at UNB started seabird research there in 1995, and that work continues from Heather Major's lab in Saint John. I describe the birds that nest there, and summarise the changes we have seen in their populations and diets through two 'regime changes', several 'marine heatwaves' and a steadily warming ocean environment. An important part of our approach is collaboration with U.S. partners (National Audubon Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) who manage and continue research on other colonies in the Gulf of Maine.
December 4th - Barry Monson will be speaking about birding in Panama.
December 14th - 2025 Fredericton Christmas Bird Count
Jan 8 , 2026 - the speaker will be Karl. P.phillips
The talk will be about the wildlife from my 23-day trip to the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula in February and March, with regular doses of the history and geopolitics of human interactions with the Antarctic biosphere. I give credit in advance to the guides from the trip, and their excellent lectures during sea days and half-days. Wildlife includes eight cetaceans, seven penguins, six albatrosses, five pinnipeds, three skuas, the two southernmost vascular plants, and more. Human stories include Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition (and his grave), industrial whaling around South Georgia, Antarctic station life, some of the southernmost churches, a first-hand experience of medical evacuation in Antarctica, the Antarctic treaty system, and some careful touches upon sovereignty of the Falklands/Malvinas. I'll come prepared with a few nuggets from an epilogue in Tierra del Fuego, in case there's time and appetite.
I'm a postdoctoral researcher at UNB, where I use telemetry to study the seaward migration of young Atlantic salmon. On the Wolastoq|Saint John River, I'm investigating how salmon explore headponds, seeking ways down, and on the Miramichi I study the predator-prey interaction with striped bass. I'm originally from Hampshire in the south of England, and studied for my B.Sc. and Ph.D. at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. My Ph.D. was on molecular ecology of hawksbill turtles, focusing on their sex lives and migration/dispersal strategies. My first postdoctoral position was at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, where I studied host-parasite interactions in wild guppies. I moved to Ireland in 2017, where I studied the consequences of fish escaping from aquaculture facilities and interbreeding with wild fish, before moving to Fredericton in 2022.
Feb 5, 2026 - A migration story, as told from the perspective of Long Point Bird Observatory (Ontario)
The wonder of migration is a captivating one. We will hear how a bird observatory situated on the north shore of lake Erie shed light on the phenomenal passage of birds migrating overhead both night and day. We will ask ourselves, how do birds achieve such a journey? Where do they come from, where do they go, and how do we quench our thirst for answers?
Samuel has been working for LPBO for four years and has some tales to tell from the longest established bird observatory in the Western Hemisphere. How do you count a million birds, what is banding all about, and is it just birds which migrate?
