South Dakota Ornithologists’ Union
2026 Fall Meeting
Yankton, SD, 6-8 November 2026
Friday, 6 November (Mount Marty University Campus, South Dining Hall)
6:30-7:30 pm -- Registration and Social Hour
7:30-8:30 pm -- Evening Program: Jeff Palmer, Birds and Birding in South Africa
Saturday, 7 November
7:00-10:00 am -- Field Trip – Meet at Cimpl Arena Parking Lot
10:20 am-Noon -- Morning Paper Session (Mount Marty University Campus, South Dining Hall)
10:20 -- Jillian Murphy – Big windows, small steps: improving campus safety for birds at USD
10:40 -- Kathryn Yurek – Preliminary data on microclimate benefits of eastern red cedar to wintering riparian forest birds
11:00 -- David Swanson – Burrowing Owls in Clay County, Summer 2026
11:20 -- Abigail Sosa and Owen Bell - Measuring genomic integrity of American dippers in the Black Hills region
11:40 -- Melissa Riley - This is your genome on creek: Environmental stress, telomere length, and population decline in the American Dipper
12:00-1:30 pm Lunch (on your own)
1:30-3:30 pm -- Afternoon Paper Session (Mount Marty University Campus, South Dining Hall)
1:30 -- Emma Brownlow - It's Not Selenium: Ruling Out Causes of Low Reproductive Success in Black Hills American Dippers
1:50 -- Jessica Graham - Everybody’s fledging for the weekend
2:10 -- Ricky Olson – Documentation of a hybrid dove mating with a female Eurasian-collared Dove in Pierre
2:30 -- Cole Heronimus - Experiences as an Avian Field Technician for the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies
2:50 -- Mikayla Call - Using range-wide, collaborative monitoring data to inform a regionally specific integrated population model for the U.S. American oystercatcher population
3:10 -- Christy Wails – Habitat availability is a key demographic driver of an Atlantic coast Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) population
3:30-4:30 pm -- General Membership Meeting (Mount Marty University Campus, South Dining Hall)
4:30-6:00 pm -- Board of Directors Meeting (Mount Marty University Campus, South Dining Hall)
6:30-8:30 pm -- Banquet/Program (Mount Marty University Campus, South Dining Hall)
Program: Jordan Smith, USFWS Piping Plover Lead – Piping Plover population status along the Missouri River
Sunday, 8 November
7:30 am-12:00 pm -- Field Trip – Meet at Cimpl Arena Parking Lot
12:00-12:30 pm -- Species Count-Off (Cimpl Arena Parking Lot)
12:30-2:00 pm -- Rare Bird Records Committee Meeting (MMU Biology Department, Room __)