Details for Next Conference

Directions

Join Us in Ames, Iowa September 11 - 13

4 people have registered

We are excited to welcome you to the Iowa Ornithologists' Union Fall Conference in Ames, September 11–13, 2026. The conference will be held at the Spark by Hilton Hotel (2609 S. University Blvd).

The Ames area provides outstanding birding opportunities during fall migration. Field trips will showcase several of central Iowa's premier birding destinations, each offering its own unique habitats and seasonal specialties. Ada Hayden Heritage Park has become one of Iowa's finest urban birding locations, with productive wetlands and restored prairie that attract migrating shorebirds, waterfowl, marsh birds, and a variety of songbirds. Just west of Ames, Ledges State Park offers scenic sandstone canyons and mature hardwood forests that can be alive with migrating warblers, vireos, thrushes, tanagers, and other woodland migrants. To the south, Saylorville Reservoir provides expansive mudflats, shoreline habitat, and open water that often host an impressive diversity of shorebirds, gulls, terns, wading birds, and early-arriving waterfowl. Additional field trips will explore other local gems, including McFarland Park, Peterson Pits Wildlife Management Area, Hendrickson Marsh, and the Skunk River corridor.

We hope to see you in September!

Keynote Speaker - Jeremy Withers

Birding English: Exploring the History of a Language through 50 Birds

Dr. Jeremy Withers is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Iowa State University where he teaches courses in environmental literature, science fiction, and the history of the English language. His recently published book, Birding English: Exploring the History of a Language through 50 Birds, uses birds to lead readers on an exploratory journey through the past, present, and future of the English lanugage.

From the introduction to his book: "With each of his fifty mini essays, Jeremy Withers uses birds as a point of entry into a key moment in the development of English: its origins in the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic languages, the influence of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, the creation of English’s first dictionaries and grammar books, and the arrival of rhyming slang and portmanteaus. Ideal for word nerds and bird nerds alike, this book will enchant anyone who’s ever been captivated by the song of a bird or the song of a word."

As a bird nerd, Jeremy enjoys visiting his local Ames patches and is an admirer of often overlooked birds like the Turkey Vulture, or birds in their basic plumage. As a word nerd, Jeremy loves a good dictionary.