Every Spring, more than 30 species of North American Wood Warblers pass through Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, some of them, which stay to breed.  The arrival of warblers also heralds the onset of nicer weather and bird watchers look forward to getting out to observe their beauty in color and song. Mike Bowen, a UK native who didn’t have these birds growing up, was particularly hooked on Wood Warblers in the US. Mike will share photos of male and female warblers in their Spring plumage, in addition to some soundtracks. Mike will also give clues to warbler habitat preferences and identification. His presentation will broadly follow the timetable of migration with those early to late March arrivals until the last ones that arrive in mid-May or later.

Mike Bowen is a native of Wales, United Kingdom, who was trained as a chemical engineer at the University of Birmingham (B.Sc. and Ph.D degrees). He emigrated to the U.S. in 1963 and spent 5 years with the DuPont Compnay working on textile fiber spinning processes at the “Experimental Station” in Wilmington. His early years in Wilmington introduced Bowen to North American Birding. He has birded frequently around the world and has almost 5000 species worldwide. An accomplishment of which he is quite proud, is that he has 300 species or more in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and 250-plus in the District of Columbia. He has a family place in the beach block of Dewey Beach and birds in Sussex County at regular intervals.

Join us for this monthly meeting of The Sussex Bird Club. The Sussex Bird Club's primary objective is to promote the knowledge and enjoyment of wild birds through guided field trips and monthly meetings about various aspects of birding. Meetings are open to all and beginning birders are always welcome.

NOTE: this session is available to attend in-person or through Zoom. You MUST REGISTER and indicate which you prefer.

If you have need assistance with registration or getting your Zoom invitation, please email us.

Basic written instructions for using Zoom may be found here and a brief video tutorial may be found here. Closed captioning is available for all our sessions. Information on enabling closed captioning in Zoom may be found here.