SAS February Program

The Birds of East Africa

With Jack Kirkley, Ornithologist & Emeritus Professor of Biology, UM-Western

Professor Jack Kirkley and his wife, Brenda, took wildlife-viewing safaris in East Africa during the summers of 2024 and 2025. Their travels included the Serengeti Plains of Tanzania and the mountain forests of southern Uganda, guided by expert naturalists with exceptional birding skills and deep knowledge of the region’s remarkable wildlife.

Birdwatching in East Africa offers a unique experience to observe a wide variety of birds in stunning natural settings. Many national parks and reserves are designated to protect birds.

Jack’s presentation will showcase the spectacular diversity of birds they encountered along the way—and yes, he’ll also share images of a few other fascinating animals as well. Lions and leopards and apes… oh my!

This event is free and open to the public.

To watch this program virtually, please register at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/949538694746104665

About Our Speaker

Jack Kirkley earned his bachelor’s degree in zoology at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1975, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in biology-ecology at Utah State University in 1985.  Jack retired in 2021 after his 36-year career as a biology professor at UM-Western in Dillon.

Jack is an ornithologist who has specialized in the study of birds of prey. For 30 years, Jack has conducted studies on the ecology of American Goshawks in southwestern Montana.  He also studied the physiological ecology of long-distance migration in Swainson’s Hawks, a species which migrates each fall to Argentina. From 2014-2018, Jack opportunistically studied a small colony of nesting Great-tailed Grackles in Dillon, where he documented the first confirmed instances of nesting by this species in Montana, as well as the first DNA-confirmed hybridization of a Great-tailed Grackle with a Common Grackle