Melissa Boyle will present a program on Tiny Travelers: Saw-whet Owls of Maryland

Melissa Boyle Acuti is a naturalist with a passion for owls and is sometimes referred to as "the Owl Lady", when people can't remember her name! She has a B.A. in Biology from St. Mary's College of Maryland and a M.S. in Environmental Biology from Hood College. Her research with owls began in college, where she conducted an owl pellet "diet analysis" project in her ornithology class, which led to her undergraduate degree capstone project researching the Barn Owl population in St. Mary's County in the late 1990's. After meeting Dave Brinker at an Audubon Meeting, Melissa began her work with Saw-whet Owls and completed her master’s thesis conducting a trend analysis on the population in Maryland. Since that time, Melissa has banded Saw-whet Owls almost every fall! As a visiting scientist and volunteer with the Citizen Science program, she currently oversees the Project Owlnet Saw- whet Owl station at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland. Melissa is also an active volunteer with the Maryland Bird Conservation Partnership's "Farmland Raptor Project" and is one of several volunteers specializing in monitoring the Barn Owl population in Maryland. When not studying owls, Melissa works for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources as the Chief of Interpretation for the Maryland Park Service.