Delaware Audubon Society hosted its annual dinner on Saturday December 10th at Timothy’s in Wilmington and it was a huge success! Jeff and Liz Gordon were presented with Delaware Audubon’s 2022 Conservation Award.
Two University of Delaware graduate students, Amanda Crandall and Katherine Bird, gave separate presentations about their research, which involves the use of radar and ornithology.
In attendance was Lillian Lorenc, a middle school student from Harleysville, PA, who won the second place “Red Knot Award of Excellence” in the Delaware Valley Science Fair, held in April.
Jeff and Liz Gordon with the 2022 Conservation Award.
Amanda Crandall (top) and Katherine Bird presenting their research.
Katherine Bird, Red Knot Award of Excellence winner Lillian Lorenc, and Amanda Crandall.
Details about the two Conservation Award honorees:
Jeffrey Gordon grew up in Wilmington and has maintained a lifelong interest in wildlife and the outdoors. Birds became a particular area of fascination for Jeff at age 12 and he developed his knowledge of them, and of trip and tour leading, with the generous and enthusiastic mentorship of members of the Delaware Ornithological Society, the Delaware Nature Society, and Delaware Audubon. As a high school student, he served several times as “bird dog” for National Audubon President Russell Peterson on birdathon fundraising efforts. Over his 40+ year career in birding and conservation Jeff has become an internationally-known writer, photographer, tour leader, and naturalist. He served as coordinator of the Delaware Birding Trail working with Ann Rydgren and many others in the late 2000’s. He was President for the American Birding Association from 2010 to 2021, overseeing the move of the ABA headquarters to Delaware and the addition of Hawaii to the ABA Area.
Liz Deluna Gordon started birding 35 years ago in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. After her eyes were opened to the amazing tropical birds and plants there, she decided her goal in life would be to introduce as many people--especially kids--as she could to the idea that birds and bird habitat were worth caring for and protecting. She became a champion of developing the local economy through ecotourism and was a key member of the team that founded the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.
Liz and Jeff met in South Texas in 1990, beginning a friendship and a professional partnership that has continued for over three decades. In 2003 Liz and her son, Travis, moved to Delaware and in 2006, Jeff and Liz were married. While in the First State, Liz has been a teacher/naturalist for the Delaware Nature Society and the Center for the Inland Bays. Over the 2010’s, she coordinated the American Birding Association’s Young Birder programs, its efforts to support bird conservationists in Latin America through Birders’ Exchange, and the ABA’s events program. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Jeff and Liz have resided just across the state line in Media, Pennsylvania.