May Monthly Meeting – Annual Banquet

Annual Banquet – Thursday, May 8, 2014 – 6:00 pm – Amarante’s Restaurant, New Haven

Don’t miss this great event-always great company, great food, and a great program. Reservations required; watch the spring newsletter, Club emails, and the Club website for details and reservation forms. Early reservations are greatly appreciated!  Please remember to bring cash to the banquet to pay for your drinks at the cash bar and to buy tickets for the always-fun raffle of interesting, exciting, and worthwhile prizes!

Speaker: Richard Crossley, author of The Crossley ID Guide series
Topic: “Past, Present, and Future”

Richard Crossley is an internationally acclaimed birder, award winning author and photographer, and great story teller. “Crazy,” “wildly passionate,” “driven,” and “single-minded” are just a few of the words that have been used to describe his love of birding and the outdoors. Tonight you’ll be sumptuously regaled with tales of lessons Richard learned while growing up in the wild British birding scene-instructive and amusing tales from his travels around the world up to his life today as a resident of Cape May, NJ. It will be a fast-paced story, too, told in a Yorkshire brogue through a camera lens that definitely loves color and art. With humor and depth Richard will highlight the thoughts behind his revolutionary The Crossley ID Guide series. But is changing how we look at books and birds enough? ‘Heck, no!” says Richard. After you hear some of the stories of his past and present, you just might change or at least reconsider your outlook on the future of birding, lifestyles, and nature. Richard started birding at the age of 7; by his late teens he was hitchhiking all over Europe in his bird quest, and by 21 he had visited and fallen in love with Cape May, NJ. A few years later he moved there for good, getting a Green Card as an “Alien of Exceptional Ability” for his work on bird identification. He certainly has been following through. Though at first juggling the business world and raising a family, he wanted to leave at least a small thumb-print in birding and became involved in The Shorebird Guide. That led to a new passion for photography which he used to help inspire people to see wildlife through new eyes. His goal of popularizing birding and the outdoors took a giant leap with his committing to the bird world full-time and with his publication of The Crossley ID Guide, a fresh new approach in showing birds in more lifelike and comprehensive views-the way we see them in real life in their customary habitats. More guides in his series are forthcoming on subjects including warblers, waterfowl, raptors, and the birds of Britain. One of the co-founders of ‘The Pledge to Fledge’ campaign, a grassroots movement to popularize birding in the US and globally, Richard is a huge advocate of kids birding because they are the future. His enthusiasm is infectious, his passion for birds palpable. Don’t miss a thrilling evening!