Reading Raptors
Science Pub | Registration opens 8/26/2026 7:00 AM EDT
Join us to learn what birds of prey can tell us about our environment if we ask the right questions. Nick Baer will share from more than 30 years of research banding migrating birds of prey with the Cape May Raptor Banding Project in Cape May, NJ. To date, the research has provided insight into hawk and eagle migration and distribution patterns, population dynamics, life expectancies and avian diseases amid a changing landscape. Nick will also share what he and his students have learned about heavy metal bioaccumulation in these apex predators, as well as diseases these birds carry and potentially move during migration.
- As always, doors open in Galligan's Pub at 5 PM for those who would like to purchase food and/or drink ahead of the talk, which begins at 6 PM.
Nick Baer
Professor Baer joined the Colby-Sawyer College faculty in 2004. He received a B.A. from the University of Vermont and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. His teaching interests include freshwater biology, conservation biology, ecology, water resources and environmental studies. His research interests are in freshwater foodweb dynamics, aquatic macroinvertebrates, water quality, and ecosystem structure and function, particularly relating to how aquatic organisms respond to changes in water parameters such as pH, conductivity, nitrogen, phosphorus and dissolved organic carbon concentrations.