The Clarkston-area Backyard Birders Club will close out its first full year with a musical flourish.
“We increased our membership roster five-fold in 2018,” said Bob McGowan, the club’s founder and president. “We’ve had one outstanding guest speaker after another, so it’s fitting we’ll end our first full year with something really special and a bit different so that’s just what we’re going to do.”
The public is invited to the club’s final meeting in 2018 on Nov. 28, 7 p.m., in the atrium of The Gateway shops in Clarkston. There are no admission charge or fees.
“We’ll have a double feature, very special attraction,” McGowan said. “Jeff Lange will show his beautiful documentary, ‘Dance of the Sandhill Crane.’”
Lange is active in protecting and saving birds and preserving their habitat through his work with LoonCorps Northern Michigan.
“Jeff is not only an outstanding film maker; he is also an accomplished musician, teaming with singer Lee Anne Whitman in Indigo Moon, an acoustic folk duo,” McGowan said. “They’ll perform their music to wrap up the evening and the year for us.”
Indigo Moon features a mix of traditional folk music with guitar, harmonic voices, and other instruments playing familiar songs and life-inspired original pieces.
“We love nature, from the tiny mayfly to the vast universe, and bring this love and fascination into the lines of our music,” Lange said.
According to McGowan, “You don’t need to know much, if anything, about birds to enjoy our meetings. Our members share their sightings, stories, and tips. We’re not ornithologists, just people who find it pleasant to look out the window at our local birds and maybe try to identify an unusual feathered visitor that just made a refueling stop at our feeder.”
The club has already scheduled guest speakers for its first quarter of 2019, including special presentations about bluebirds, purple martins and special field trips during spring migration of warblers, other songbirds, and other species.