NYSOA 2025
New York State
Ornithological Association
2025 Conference
September 19-21, 2025
Ithaca, New York
Hosted by Cayuga Bird Club
Join us in Ithaca for a weekend celebrating the birds and birders of New York State!
The 2025 New York Birders Conference / NYSOA Annual Meeting, hosted by the Cayuga Bird Club, will be held at the newly opened Ithaca Downtown Conference Center (IDCC). The conference is timed for opportunities to view migratory birds on field trips to area hotspots, including to the 10,000-acre Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. Ithaca is the home of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and you’ll want to explore the newly renovated Visitor Center and join a behind-the-scenes mini-tour on Friday afternoon. A Friday welcome reception at IDCC will provide a great opportunity to connect with old friends and meet new folks who also love birding. There will be vendors with nature and birding gear, crafts, and gifts, as well as a silent auction including birding optics. After the welcome reception on Friday, Dr. Adriaan Dokter, of the Cornell Lab, will give a presentation about BirdCast, a radar-based tool providing real-time information on bird movements during migration.
Following field trips to lakeshore or upland habitats on Saturday, we’ll celebrate the NYS Breeding Bird Atlas with lunch and a presentation by Atlas coordinator Julie Hart. This will be followed by a paper session with short presentations on bird-related topics. The NYS Young Birders Club will be back to lead a fun and challenging Bird ID Quiz! The annual New York State Ornithological Association meeting, with delegates from bird clubs and Audubon chapters across New York State will also happen on Saturday. That evening we’ll get together for a buffet dinner, followed by NYSOA awards presentations and our Keynote speaker, Peter Kaestner, the first person to have seen 10,000 birds around the world and an active bird conservationist.
Read more about our invited speakers below!
Keynote Speaker: Peter Kaestner
In Search of the Orange-tufted Spiderhunter
Our Keynote speaker on Saturday evening will be Peter Kaestner, who on February 9, 2024, became the first person to have seen 10,000 species of birds in the world. A highlight of Peter's birding journey was his discovery of a new species of antpitta in Colombia, subsequently named after him, the Cundinamarca Antpitta (Grallaria kaestneri). Peter was recently awarded the American Birding Association’s Roger Tory Peterson lifetime achievement award for his contributions to birding.
Peter will take us on a pictorial journey through his lifetime of birding and his pursuit to find 10,000 bird species, including representatives of every bird family. Starting as a child in Baltimore, and being mentored by his brother Hank to become a birder, Peter studied at Friends School and Cornell. After a stint in the Peace Corps (where he was an honorary field affiliate of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), Peter joined the U.S. Foreign Service and lived in 12 different countries during his 36-year career. Upon retirement, he devoted himself to birding, bird conservation, and tour leading. As he approached the magical number, things got very interesting, and his plans were completely upset. See how the story unfolds as Peter ends his quest in the forest of SE Mindanao, Philippines.
Friday Speaker: Adriaan Dokter
BirdCast - a Large-scale Perspective on Bird Migration
Saturday Luncheon: Julie Hart
Breeding Bird Atlas Celebration and Lunch
Celebrate your hard work on the Atlas! Julie Hart and the NYS Breeding Bird Atlas team would like to show their appreciation for all your hard work by hosting a lunch party on Saturday. We’ll hand out awards, share highlights from preliminary analyses, and showcase exemplary photos of breeding behaviors. Most of all, we will have a chance to thank you in person for all your hard work to update the primary database guiding bird conservation in the state.