LENOX, Mass. — Lenox Library will host a multimedia presentation by Mark Ameigh on the "Birds of Kennedy Park" on Saturday, April 13, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. in the Library's Welles Gallery, located at 18 Main Street.

 

The program will highlight roughly 50 birds that can be found in Kennedy Park, most of which are summer-only residents that arrive in late April and are gone by early August. These include warblers, vireos, fly-catchers, Grosbeaks, and other migratory species, each staking out a territory in their favored habitats. Using drawings and a copy of the trail map displayed on kiosks throughout the park, Mark Ameigh will show where he encountered various birds in the summer of 2023.

 

Due to their diminutive size, elusive nature, and camouflaging plumage, many birds are nearly impossible to see and can only be heard. Cell phone apps recently have become available to capture their songs and identify which bird is calling. One such app is Merlin Sound ID from Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY. Ameigh will demonstrate how this app works so attendees can identify more of the birds they hear in Kennedy Park. Attendees are encouraged to bring their favorite birding field guide for personal reference during the program.

 

Presenter Mark Ameigh lives in Lenox. A self-described "amateur naturalist" who moved from Buffalo, NY to Western Mass in 1983, he has spent years scouting the nature reserves of the region in search of birds, butterflies, wildflowers, and other wildlife that make the highlands of Western Massachusetts and the Berkshires so special. In the spring of 2023, he began to maintain a daily journal of bird species he encountered, primarily in Kennedy Park and Mass Audubon’s Pleasant Valley and Canoe Meadows wildlife reserves. After reading two articles on drawing birds published in the New York Times in the summer of 2023, he took up the challenge of learning to draw birds himself and looked to his journals for subjects to illustrate.

 

This program is free and open to the public.