Do you struggle to distinguish Alder Flycatchers from Acadians, or Tree Swallows from Rough-winged?  Have trouble deciding if you’re looking at a Willow Flycatcher or an Eastern Wood-Pewee, or ID’ing Cliff and Cave Swallows on the wing (which is how you usually see them)?  With spring migration beginning, join us to get tips and tricks for identifying these aerial insectivores using field marks like tail and wingtip length as well as song mnemonics (fitz-bew!). In this interactive multimedia presentation, Matt Hayes, an avian biologist and Illinois Audubon Society’s Assistant Director, will also discuss why birds that catch their food in flight face population declines and what we can do to help save them.

The group of songbirds known as Darwin’s finches that Charles Darwin collected in the Galapagos on his 1830s HMS Beagle expedition are frequently (and mistakenly) associated with his formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, but recent genetic studies have established that these birds are actually tanagers in the family Thraupidae. John Bates, the Rowe Family Curator of Evolutionary Biology at the Field Museum, will join us to explain the research behind these new revelations and other insights provided by genetic research into the relationships in this amazing family of New World birds.