East Bay Dinner

"Sierra Birds: A User-Friendly Guide"

Thursday, January 27, no-host cocktails/social hour - 6 pm, dinner - 7, program - 8, Berkeley Yacht Club on the Berkeley Marina, one block north of the west end of University Avenue (ample free parking is available in the Marina parking lots).

It has happened to all of us. Walking or backpacking in the Sierra Nevada, we see a bird that we don't know and wish we did. We are not carrying a field guide for birds (it's too heavy), and so we make a mental note to look up the bird after our hike.

Later, when we try to identify what we saw, we remember the color and general shape and size, but our memory lacks the detail for a definite identification. Frustrating, isn't it?

Jack Muir Laws, naturalist, illustrator, educator, and backpacker, decided to solve this dilemma - by designing a field guide for the Sierra that is light enough to carry, easy to use, and designed for the lay person.

For the past five years he has traveled to the Sierra, met with naturalists, and dug into museum collections. The result is the slim volume Sierra Birds, A Hiker's Guide to help us identify 200 of the region's most common birds. The birds, beautifully illustrated by Jack, are grouped by color for easier use.

This volume on birds is but the first step in Jack's grander vision of creating a comprehensive field guide to the animals and plants of the Sierra that will be light enough, comprehensive enough, and easy enough to use that we will take it along when we walk, hike, or backpack.

Join us as Jack (rumored to be not only informative, but entertaining as well) relates his adventures in finding samples to sketch, gives us hints on how to identify what we see, and adds to our appreciation of the mountains in our own "back yard".

Jack Muir Laws is a research and education associate at the California Academy of Sciences, as well as a wildlife biologist, environmental educator, and artist.

Dinner is $22 including tax and tip. To make a reservation, please send your check, payable to the "Sierra Club", with your name and telephone number, to:

Jane Barrett
170 Vicente Road
Berkeley, CA 94705
(510) 845-8055

Attendance is limited to the first 115 reservations received. There is no admittance for the program only. Reservation deadline is Jan. 13. Reserve early, as the dinners do fill up.