| Left to right above: Artemis Eyster, Andy Johnson, Harold Eyster, 5/30/10. Photo: M. Sefton
Congratulations to young Washtenaw Audubon members Harold Eyster, Andy Johnson, and Artemis Eyster! Harold, 16, from Chelsea, was recently named the American Birding Association’s Young Birder of the Year, having won the Illustration, Writing, and Field Notebook modules of the competition, and placed second in the Photography module. Harold’s sister, Artemis, 13, placed second in the Illustration module. Harold and Artemis’s work can be viewed at www.aba.org/yby/win.html
Harold also presented a paper at the annual conference of the Wilson Ornithological Society in Geneva, NY, in May this year. An abstract of Harold’s very interesting paper about the naming of MacGillivray’s Warbler can be found at www.wilsonsociety.org/wos2010/WOS2010Schedule&Abstracts.pdf on page 23. Harold will be attending the ABA’s Young Birder Camp Colorado in June.
Andy Johnson, 18, from Ann Arbor, along with Harold, was named to the American Birding Association’s youth birding team, the Tropicbirds, and competed in the Great Texas Birding Classic in April, raising money for the ABA’s education programs. Andy, Harold, and their three team mates were assigned to the Upper Texas Coast part of the competition, and found 207 species of birds during the 24 hour contest! Andy
graduated from Pioneer High in Ann Arbor in June, and will be spending June and July in Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay, as part of a Cornell Lab of Ornithology sponsored team studying breeding Hudsonian Godwits. Andy will be attending Cornell University as a freshman in September.
Finally, Andy and Harold teamed up for a half day birding competition at the Biggest Week in American Birding festival at Crane Creek/Magee Marsh in Ohio on May 9. By tallying the largest number of species of any team, they won a birding trip to northwest Ecuador later this year!
Andy, Artemis, and Harold have been welcome participants at many Washtenaw Audubon field trips and other events over the past few years. We extend hardiest congratulations to them and their families at the great success they’ve had in pursuing their birding interests, and will watch their future adventures with great anticipation!
— Mike Sefton
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