Date: 1/15/25 5:48 am From: Patrice Domeischel <fourharborsheron...> Subject: [nysbirds-l] Tomorrow Evening - Four Harbors Audubon Society Winter Presentation: Birding to Change the World
Tomorrow evening: Thursday, January 16 at 7 p.m.
Four Harbors Audubon Society presents:
Birding to Change the World with guest speaker Trish O'Kane.
A professor and activist, Trish O’Kane shares what birds can teach us about life, social change, and protecting the environ- ment.
In her nearly two decades writing about justice as an investigative journalist, she'd never paid attention to nature. But then Hurricane Katrina destroyed her New Orleans home, sending her into an emotional tailspin.
O'Kane will detail the astonishing science of bird life, from migration and parenting to the territorial defense strategies that influenced her own activism. She’ll share how she was inspired and cheered by nearby feathered characters and lead on a new path to Madison, Wisconsin where she became a full-on bird obsessive—logging hours in a stunningly biodiverse urban park, filling field notebooks with bird doings and dramas, and teaching ornithology to college students. We’ll hear about Warner Park—her daily birdwatching haven. When the park was threatened with development, O’Kane and her neighbors mustered a mighty murmuration of nature lovers, young and old, to save the birds' homes. Through their efforts, she learned that once you get outside and look around, you're likely to fall in love with a furred or feathered creature—and find a flock of your own.
Following the presentation, there will be an interactive Q & A followed by a brief segment where the audience will have the opportunity to share their own stories about birds and birding.
Trish O’Kane, the author of Birding to Change the World, a Memoir, is a writer and a senior lecturer in environ- mental justice at the University of Vermont, where avians are her teaching assistants. A former human rights journalist in Central America and the Deep South, she has written for the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in Burlington, Vermont, with her writer-husband, their dog, and three chickens.
