Dave Lambeth talks about birds, feature launched in his honor during walk through Sertoma Park – Grand Forks Herald

On a beautiful spring morning during a spring when beautiful mornings were hard to come by, Dave Lambeth went for a walk through Sertoma Park in Grand Forks to see what he could see and hear what he could hear.

More specifically, he was looking for and listening to birds.

Maybe a yellow gorge. Maybe a cat or two. Or a green heron.

Known locally as the “Birding Dean of Grand Forks,” a title bestowed upon him by Herald editor and publisher Mike Jacobs—an accomplished birder in his own right—Lambeth is widely regarded. THE authority when it comes to bird life in the Grand Forks area.

He founded the Grand Cities Bird Club, has long overseen the annual Grand Forks Audubon Christmas Bird Count, led birding trips and taught community education birding classes.

A retired UND professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, Lambeth has also been an advocate for preserving the prairie lands that remain in Grand Forks County.

Few people are more knowledgeable when it comes to birds. Or more willing to share that knowledge.

As for the title of ‘Dean’, Lambeth downplays the distinction.

“I think the translation is ‘really old,'” he jokes.

Just days shy of his 83rd birthday at the time of his recent morning walk, Lambeth recently had an endowed scholarship at UND created in his honor. The Lambeth Ornithology Scholarship will be awarded to a deserving UND biology student who is involved in ornithology, the study of birds.

Two retired professors with long histories of conservation work – Erik Fritzell and Robert Seabloom – launched the endowment in April in recognition of Lambeth, who was in hospital at the time recovering from a stroke that suffered at the beginning of March.

“I was in rehab, literally on my back,” Lambeth said, recalling how he learned about the endowment from his wife, Cec. “It came as a complete, out of the blue thing. I had no idea anyone was thinking about it. I also think, “I don’t deserve this. I was just a bird watcher doing what I love to do following my passion. “

At the same time, Lambeth says, he appreciates honor and recognition.

“And then the really good part is, I think, it gives a scholarship to someone who might need it,” Lambeth said. “Along with that there will be more recognition if one works with the birds.”

As an example of this work, he cites the project that Susan Felege, a UND professor of wildlife ecology and management, is overseeing as part of a multi-partner study that aims to learn more about bird movements and the risks of bird strike associated with Grand Forks. Grand Forks International Airport and Air Force Base.

As part of the study, UND students under Felege’s guidance are training birds such as red-winged blackbirds and blackbirds with small tracking devices that communicate with a series of 30-foot towers installed at various locations around the county. The towers are part of the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, described on its website as “an international collaborative network of researchers using automated radio telemetry to simultaneously track hundreds of individuals of numerous species of birds, bats and insects”.

Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald

During the summer of 2023, Lambeth says, Felege and her students worked with Franklin’s gulls in the Grand Forks lagoon, which were later found wintering in South America, based on information collected from trackers on the Motus network .

“Susan is doing some cutting-edge stuff these days,” Lambeth said. “So the students who work with Susan will get a good experience that will prepare them, I think, for a future life as an ornithologist or wildlife biologist.”

As of early June, the endowment had raised “only $19,000” and was nearing its $25,000 goal, said Fritzell, one of the retired teachers who launched the scholarship fund.

Sertoma Park, his destination this morning, is a popular spot for birdwatchers, says Lambeth. English Coulee, which flows through the 22-acre park, is one reason the park is attractive to birds, he says; so is the abundance of cover available for both songbirds and waterfowl.

“This is just a gem of a park,” Lambeth said. “It gets more impressive every year, I think. It is now the starting point for most birds. That’s their first stop of the day if they’re out birding most of the day or most of the morning.”

Lambeth starts his morning walk by firing up the Merlin Bird ID app on his smartphone. Developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Merlin helps birders identify birds through both sound and photos that users can upload to the app.

The app, which is free and requires no subscription, will help identify birds in the area, Lambeth says. The spring migration has passed — “there might be a real stray now and then,” he says — so most of the park’s birds will likely be nesting.

“It’s a good time to watch nesting birds to see what they’re doing,” he said. “I used to like to try and check as many nesting birds as I could in the county. I don’t work on it anymore, but I used to love it.”

A few minutes’ walk away, Lambeth’s Merlin app identified song sparrows and yellow sparrows, to name just a few species.

“It’s valuable for people who study birds,” Lambeth said. “Learning calls and songs, as you might guess, is the last thing most people will learn. And it helps guys like me. I probably don’t hear two thirds of what Merlin hears.

For Lambeth, birding has been an interest ever since he grew up on a farm in Missouri – “I had no binoculars, no field guide (and) I made up names for some of the birds I identified on the farm and I became familiar with it,” he says — but his interest “really caught fire” in his late 20s.

“It happened when I started meeting other people who were interested in birds and they were telling me things,” Lambeth said. Especially intriguing, he recalls, was hearing wood ducks from an upstairs neighbor in the student housing complex where he lived on the Wisconsin campus.

“I thought, ‘Wood ducks?’ That’s a strange name for a duck,” said Lambeth. “So I had to go out and have a look when he told me a little bit about them, that they were up in the trees and making this funny noise. I had to find out for myself.

“So that was really, really the beginning.”

Life led Lambeth and his family to Grand Forks and UND in 1977. As an avid birder and wildlife photographer, Lambeth says “there’s no comparison” between the popularity of birding now and when he moved to Grand Forks.

Today, birdwatching is among the most popular forms of outdoor recreation nationwide, a trend that’s also evident in Grand Forks, Lambeth says.

“Back then we had an Audubon chapter and we’d do field trips and a dozen people would show up looking for birds, but most of those people didn’t keep a list,” he said. “Now we have a lot more people who are quite serious.”

For example, about 150 people, including some from out of state, subscribe to the Grand Cities Bird Club email list, where avid birders regularly post updates and photos of the birds they encounter.

Contributed / Dave Lambeth

“I’m surprised how many people are on this list,” Lambeth said. “We don’t police that in any way unless someone goes out of line with their posts or someone starts attacking someone else, then we intervene. But that never happened.

“We have no admission criteria. Just sign up if you want to receive the emails.”

Lambeth says he attributes at least part of the rise in birdwatching to social media and the affordability of good camera equipment.

“Photography is now more accessible than ever,” he said. “You don’t need a huge lens to get really good photos these days. I find people who start taking pictures of things, including birds, then start wondering, “I wonder why I just took a picture.” “

The pandemic, of course, has also helped increase the popularity of birdwatching, as it has for all outdoor activities.

“People were looking for things to do and to be isolated,” he said. “So getting out and walking in nature, walking in the park, was a way to do that.”

Lambeth’s walk through the park on this beautiful spring morning goes pretty much as expected, with sightings that included green heron, yellow hen, catbird, song sparrow, robin, warbler, sparrow, cedar-wing and a mallard hen with a lot of ducklings. which couldn’t be more than a day or so old.

It was a good morning.

Anyone interested in contributing to the Dave Lambeth Ornithology Endowment can send a tax-deductible donation to the UND Alumni Association and Foundation at UNDAAF, 3501 University Ave., Stop 8157, Grand Forks, ND 58202. Be sure to identify “Lambeth Ornithology Scholarship” in an enclosed note and/or on the check endorsement line.

Contributors can also access the Foundation’s website at https://undalumni.org. Select ‘Give Now’, scroll down to ‘Click here to select your fund’, locate the David Lambeth Ornithology Scholarship using the ‘Search’ function in the drop-down menu and follow the instructions.