9:00 Council Meeting – Powdermill Nature Reserve
1:00 Registration – Antiochian Village Conference Center (AVCC)
2:00 Workshops
4:30 Social Hour + Bird Game + Bucket Raffle viewing
6:00 Dinner
7:15 Keynote Speaker – Dr. Joely DeSimone
SATURDAY
7:00 Breakfast
7:00 Registration
8:00 Welcome and Oral Presentations begin
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Oral Presentations continued
4:30 Poster Session + Social Hour
6:00 Dinner
7:15 Keynote Speaker – Robert Mulvihill Bucket Raffle (immediately following keynote)
SUNDAY
7:00 Breakfast Field Trips
7:3011:30
11:00
• Powdermill Avian Research Center tour and banding demo – drop in!
• National Aviary bird show and tour (registration required) Register for Aviary field trip
Keynote Speakers | Friday and Saturday
Dr. JOELY DESIMONE | Opening Keynote Speaker, Friday, March 20
An Ode to Bird Banding Stations: Scientific Insights and Public Engagement Impacts
Dr. DeSimone received a PhD in Organismal Biology, Ecology, and Evolution from the University of Montana in 2022 and she is now an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. She is a migration ecologist who combines captive experiments, field studies, and analyses of long-term bird banding data to understand the causes and consequences of animal movements.
Bird banding stations generate tremendous datasets that can generate novel insights in ornithology. Dr. DeSimone will discuss her recent work using bird banding data to study the community ecology of migration. The seasonal migrations of many species often converge in space and time, providing opportunities for interspecific interactions that, although rarely studied, may influence migratory routes, timing, and success. Social network analysis of banding data from five stopover sites across northeastern North America (including Powdermill) reveal species relationships that are generally positive and persist across sites and seasons. This work encourages a view of migration as the movement of whole communities of birds, not just individuals or species. Importantly, many migratory birds are declining and altering the timing of their migrations in response to climate change and other anthropogenic environmental changes, and these species-specific changes in abundance and migration timing have changed some stopover communities over the past few decades. In addition to their importance to ornithological research, bird banding stations also offer unique opportunities for the public to engage firsthand with wildlife, science research, and scientists, making them well-positioned to affect public beliefs and behaviors in ways that support bird conservation. Dr. DeSimone will describe new research showing that public engagement is pervasive across North American banding stations. Visitors report these experiences increase their knowledge and interest in birds, but to an even greater extent, visits impact their beliefs that scientific research is transparent and that science professionals listen and are caring. Altogether, Dr. DeSimone will demonstrate the value of bird banding stations to the scientific community and the public.
ROBERT MULVIHILL
| Closing Keynote Speaker, Saturday, March 21
A
Serendipitous
Career in Bird Banding Research
Robert S. Mulvihill, the National Aviary’s Ornithologist, began volunteering at Powdermill Nature Reserve regularly in the fall of 1978 when he was in college, and was hired full-time as a bander and education specialist at Powdermill in 1983. While working full-time, Mulvihill earned an M.S. in Biology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. During his nearly 30-year tenure at Powdermill, Bob banded several hundred thousand birds, from hummingbirds to hawks, has conducted long-term field research on several bird species, has authored dozens of peer-reviewed papers and popular articles, and has extensive experience with “community science” programs to advance the study of birds and increase people’s appreciation of them. Mulvihill takes great pride in having trained and mentored more than a hundred students throughout his career, many of whom have gone on to pursue graduate degrees and lead productive careers in ornithology and conservation biology.
Bob will speak about his ornithological career: Throughout my nearly 50 year career studying birds, I have been attracted to a wide variety of research questions. Not infrequently I have pursued studies resulting from one or two quirky, eyebrow-raising observations either made by me or told to me by others. I have investigated runt eggs in bluebirds, nest sharing by robins and catbirds, and the occurrence of some very unexpected natural hybrids! In my career I have been influenced and mentored by some of the greats in ornithology, including Robert C. Leberman, Dr. Kenneth C. Parkes, and Dr. Josh Van Buskirk. In this talk I will review five decades of my ornithological peregrinations, which sometimes have led to discoveries of interest to banders, birders, and ornithologists alike!
Saturday Presentations
8:00 WELCOME
8:10
8:30
8:50
Ian Stewart | Prevalence of ticks on passerines banded in the mid-Atlantic
Anne Mauro | West Nile virus surveillance across an urban-rural gradient: from mosquitoes to birds
Emma Rhodes | Ultralight solar transmitter enables fine-scale movement ecology in North American hummingbird migration
Grace Muench | Tracking Passerines and translocated Northern Bobwhite at Letterkenny Army Depot
11:00 David Yeany II | Continental conservation of the Evening Grosbeak
11:15
Taleen Madikians | Not all chicks eat the same: Hatch order and diet in Great Black-backed Gulls
11:30 Kayla Cannon | Why so defensive? Nest defense behavior in Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus)
11:45
Maddie Ellms | It’s a Gull’s World: What long–term banding can teach us about an underappreciated species
12:00 LUNCH
1:10
1:30
1:50
2:10
2:30
Jennifer Houtz | Disentangling relationships between physiology, morphology, diet, and gut microbial diversity in American Kestrel nestlings
Cassie Ziegler | Ecological forestry gaps provide structural and dietary resources for sympatric Wood Thrush and Veery
Aaron Coolman | Studying the movement ecology of Northern Saw-whet Owls using Motus and GPS telemetry
Morgan Mark | Characterizing Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus) irruptions in eastern North America using banding data
Dhruv Iyengar | Using interpubic distance for determining sex and breeding conditions of Passerines and near-Passerines
2:50 Break
3:10
3:30
Nick Liadis | Insights from banding across a landscape gradient: urban, suburban, and rural
Ella Ezrin | Fruit species diversity in avian diets of the eastern Midwest
3:50 Ginny Boehme | Assessing generative artificial intelligence tools for analyzing bird banding data
4:10
Lena Usyk | Bandedbirds.org: A web-based relational database for reporting and retrieving observations of individually marked birds
Saturday Presentations
4:30 POSTER SESSION
Serina Brady | ZooMu Network: Integrating Zoos and Natural History Museums to Enhance Capacity for Biological Collections Research
Tommy Crary | Tracking trends in spring migration phenology with piecewise regression
Cathlyn“Cat” Davis | Public engagement at North American bird banding stations
Leo Harris | Explorations of plastics and prey in gut contents of Northern Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis)
Reka Ivanyi | What’s in a Day? Investigating diurnal changes in nest defense behavior of Herring Gulls
Dhruv Iyengar | Documenting methods of ageing and sexing Passerines and near-Passerines for pedagogical use in bird banding and field ornithology
Will Krohn | Investigating Natal Dispersal and Artificial Colony Use in Purple Martins (Progne subis)
Kaitlin Muccio | Hatching a Hundred: community efforts to conserve the American Kestrel in central NJ
Anastasia A. Rahlin | Point-of-Care Device Comparison and Stopover Habitat Assessment Using Blood Metabolite Monitoring in Migratory Songbirds
Juhi Rawal | Incidence of ectoparasites on passerines banded in the New Jersey Meadowlands 2024-25
Stella Risinger | Chick Growth in Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus): The Role of Nest Location and Hatch Order
Brennan Saxfield | Range changes in birds using six decades of bird banding data
Matthew Wolfe | Changes in local avifauna after large-scale removal of invasive Artemesia vulgaris)
The EBBA 2026 conference logo was designed by Judy Elizalde-Salinas.
It features a Canada Warbler, a locally common breeding species, and Mountain Laurel, Pennsylvania’s state flower. Both define the forested habitat of the Laurel Highlands region of southwest Pennsylvania.
View the full digital program HERE
Workshops
2:00 –4:30
FRIDAY AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS – MARCH 20
Joe Saxfield | GIS on a Shoestring
Joe will explore options to collect and analyze spatial data that are free-of-cost or low-cost. Drawing on many years of experience, he will discuss the minimum equipment necessary, how to speak with universities and other organizations about spatial data effectively and coherently, where to find data, and give a brief overview of open-source desktop and mobile applications.
Grace Muench | Molt Limit Coloring Corner
Join us for a hands-on activity to strengthen your understanding of molt limits. Together, we will practice illustrating partial and incomplete molts; juvenile, formative, basic, and alternate feather generations; and specific molt limits like A1, CC, and eccentric limits.
Andrea Patterson | Avian Injuries, Illness, and First Aid in the Field
Learn about “weird things you sometimes see” while banding birds. Andrea has compiled photo archives of things like color abnormalities, hybrids, and gynandromorphism, and photos of parasites and diseases that are difficult to find illustrated like avian pox, scaly leg mites, and cloacal flukes. If you’ve been puzzled while banding, attend this workshop!
Serina Brady | Museum Specimens
Considered one of the largest ornithological collections in the United States, the Section of Birds at Carnegie Museum of Natural History contains over 200,000 cataloged specimens spanning the globe and over 125 years. With various preparation types ranging from study skins to skeletons to spread wings and even bird “pickles,” Carnegie Museum’s Section of Birds is actively used by researchers aiming to answer groundbreaking questions in avian biology and conservationists who fight to preserve birds worldwide. Learn about the importance of natural history collections and how they are used in ornithological research.
Wildlife Rehabber and Bird Banders Discussion (tentative)
THANK YOU…
…to the 2026 keynotes, speakers, poster presenters, and workshop instructors for sharing your research and expertise with us,
…to the conference attendees for joining together in southwest Pennsylvania to support EBBA and fellow banders,
…to the conference’s sponsors and donors for their generous financial contributions to the conference and research awards,
…and to the local Party Planning Committee for your behind-thescenes work to make this conference a success!
Field Trips
SUNDAY FIELD TRIPS – MARCH 22
7:3011:30
Powdermill Avian Research Center tour and banding demo (drop in!) 1860 Route 381, Rector, PA | www.powdermillarc.org
Visit Powdermill’s new banding lab building and learn about the research the ornithologists and banders have been doing at Powdermill since 1961. The nets will be open (weather permitting!) for banding that morning!
11:00
National Aviary bird show and tour (pre-registration required 700 Arch Street, Pittsburgh, PA | www.aviary.org
Visit the National Aviary in Pittsburgh for a guided tour and live immersive bird show. The Aviary has excellent exhibits including free flight rooms, a penguin habitat, and much more. After the scheduled tour, participants are welcome to explore on their own for as long as they wish. Cost is only $20 per meeting attendee. Minimum group size is 15.
