Bird Watchers To Study in South America

Four undergraduates, including three members of a freshman seminar, will fly to Colombia next Thursday for a ten-day field trip to get acquainted with the tropics and study birds.

"Generous individuals" outside the University have paid for the students' airfare, Raymond A. Paynter, lecturer in Biology and organizer of the trip, said yesterday.

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The remaining costs, to be paid for by the students, will total about $150 each, he added.

Although three of the students who will go to Colombia are also members of Paynter's year-long seminar on the zoography of South American birds, he was anxious to stress that the trip is not part of the seminar.

Paynter has asked students to accompany him on annual trips of this nature for the past six years, and those whom he feels will benefit most have often been seminar members, he added.

The students drew lots last December after Paynter received enough funds for only three of the five seminar participants. He placed five numbered index cards face down on a table and those students that drew one, two and three won the right to go.

"It was a little intense but we did it very quickly and hurried on to our seminar business," Martha W. Swetzoff '80 said yesterday. She said she was "stunned" when she drew a lucky number.

The other two participating seminar members are Maureen Cieplak '80 and Alexander W. Hiam '80.

The group will arrive in Bogota on March 31 and drive about 400 miles south to San Augustin, an archeological park. The drive will allow the students to observe birds of different climates and altitudes, Richard E. Webster '77, the fourth expedition member, said yesterday.

Webster, who has participated in Paynter's trips to South America since he was in the seminar three years ago, said the trip "gets better every year."

Although Webster does not plan to make a career of ornithology, he said Paynter's seminar and trips have nurtured his interest in the field, turning a "hobby into an addiction."