LEWISTON — The Stanton Bird Club’s first meeting of the new 2009-10 birding season will be on Monday, Oct. 5, at the Green Ladle, Lewiston High School Culinary Arts Center, at 156 East Ave. A social hour with club displays will take place from 5 to 6 p.m. and a chicken dinner will be served from 6 to 7 p.m. The annual meeting and monthly speaker will begin at 7 p.m.

Derek Lovitch will present “The Morning Flight Phenomena at Sandy Point, Cousins Island, Yarmouth.” The presentation will discuss how weather and geography combine to produce an amazing flight of nocturnal migrant passerines reorienting themselves inland after flying all night and finding themselves over Casco Bay at dawn. The program will include an analysis of radar and maps, as well as discussions about the habitat here. The program will also include bird photos by Kirk Rogers.

Lovitch is a career biologist and naturalist with a life-long passion for birds. He and his wife, Jeannette, own and operate the Freeport Wild Bird Supply store. He serves on his town’s Conservation Commission, and along with his wife, founded the Bradbury Mountain Raptor Research project. He is also the “Tools of the Trade” department editor for “Birding Magazine,” and his writing has appeared in “Bird Observer,” “Bird Watcher’s Digest” and “Winging It.”

The meeting and presentation is free and open to the public. The cost for dinner will be $14 each person. Those interested in dinner, should respond no later than Monday Sept. 28, and send a check payable to Stanton Bird Club, to Tom Hayward, 107 Nichols St. Lewiston, ME 04240 or call 782-5238 to make reservations. Dinner reservations are required, no walk-ins will be accepted.

The newly published 2010 Stanton Bird Club Calendar of Birds will also be for sale at the event. For a preview, visit the Stanton website at www.stantonbirdclub.org.