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SOLD OUT Untold Stories From the History of Bird Migration Research
This event is sold out! Thank you for your enthusiasm, and check out our upcoming bird events on our calendar.
We are pleased to welcome Rebecca Heisman, author of the recent popular science book “Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration.” “Flight Paths” tells the forgotten history of how we know what we know about bird migration, from the earliest origins of bird banding to how the latest advances in fields like genomics and artificial intelligence are being harnessed in pursuit of migration’s mysteries.
In her talk, Rebecca will share how her book came to be and recount three of the many untold stories in the book, sharing tales of some of her favorite underappreciated and eccentric innovators in the history of bird migration research. She will discuss the concept of migratory connectivity and how getting to an incredible level of detail in our understanding of the lives of migratory birds may be a key part of saving them in a changing world.
Books are available for purchase with tickets. Light refreshments will be served.
Donations given to this event will support the Northeast Motus Collaboration’s Leo Model Foundation Challenge.
About Rebecca Heisman
Rebecca Heisman is a science writer based in Walla Walla, Washington. She has contributed to publications including Audubon, Living Bird (the Cornell Lab of Ornithology magazine), and High Country News, and from 2015 to 2020 she worked for the American Ornithological Society, North America’s largest professional society for bird scientists. When she’s not birding or writing, she can usually be found chasing after her four-year-old son or enjoying her ever-growing native plant garden.
About “Flight Paths”
The captivating, little-known true story of a group of scientists and the methods and technology they developed to uncover the secrets of avian migration.
For the past century, scientists and naturalists have been steadily unravelling the secrets of bird migration. How and why birds navigate the skies, traveling from continent to continent–flying thousands of miles across the earth each fall and spring–has continually fascinated the human imagination, but only recently have we been able to fully understand these amazing journeys. Although we know much more than ever before, even the most enthusiastic birdwatcher may not know how we got here, the ways that the full breadth of scientific disciplines have come together to reveal these annual avian travels.
