*** THE LINNAEAN SOCIETY OF NEW YORK - MEETING PROGRAM - AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK CITY ***
After the summer hiatus, the Society’s evening program restarts tomorrow (Tuesday 9 September 2014) with two back-to-back presentations that reflect on the challenges facing the modern-day bird artist and what we can learn about ourselves and natural world from studying birds. Please join us. *6:00 pm — A Bird Painter’s Journey, Mike DiGiorgio* Wildlife artist Mike DiGiorgio writes: “The profession of illustration is an extremely difficult one today. Add the element of primarily painting birds, and you come up with an almost impossible endeavor.” The modern-day bird illustrator has many obstacles to overcome, from publishers’ easy access to bird photography to shrinking magazine and book sales. In his presentation, DiGiorgio will trace his personal journey, beginning as a boy with a hopeless obsession with common city backyard birds, to later rural searches for warblers, herons, and nightjars — all in his quest to capture them in line and color. Louis Fuertes was his main artistic hero, and Don Eckelberry, who asked him to join his group of artists, his primary mentor. *7:30 pm — The Bird World: Insights for Humans from the Lives of Birds, Noah Strycker* Associate editor of *Birding* and author of *Among Penguins* (2011) and more recently *The Thing with Feathers* (2014), Noah Strycker has hiked the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. He joins us to talk about parallels between bird behavior and that of humans. “Birds aren’t people,” Strycker writes, “but just how different are they from us?” Approaching bird behavior from new and surprising angles, Strycker explores the navigation of pigeons, the speed of hummingbirds, the smelling power of vultures, particle physics of starling flocks, and other mysteries — revealing why birds do what they do, and how we can relate to them. Like humans but unlike most other birds and mammals, magpies can recognize their reflection in a mirror, indicating a sense of self-awareness and even suggesting that they may feel humanlike emotions of sympathy and sadness. Albatrosses, like humans, occasionally live to be 100, and mate for life. Their “divorce rate” is about 0.1% — which puts the US adult population, with a divorce rate of 40%, to shame. Do albatrosses experience something similar to romantic love? Nutcrackers have extraordinary memories, recalling as many as 5,000 caches of pine seeds — a mental achievement that seems to rely on a complex spatial memory. With a mix of humor and cutting-edge science, anecdotes from the field and examples from pop culture, Strycker will renew your interest in the close connections between people and birds. *WHERE & WHEN* Both programs are open to the public FREE OF CHARGE and will be held in the Linder Theater of the AMNH. Enter the museum from the 77th Street entrance, where the route to the auditorium will be sign posted. The first program will last approximately one hour with time before the second program to talk to the speakers, and mingle with LSNY officers and council members, who can provide information on becoming a part of this thriving and historic natural history society. *MORE INFORMATION ON LSNY PROGRAMS* Please check out (and bookmark) our website: http://linnaeannewyork.org/calendar-programs-trips/programs2014-2015.html or visit us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/*Linnaean*-*Society* -of-New-York/335385365977?ref=ts <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linnaean-Society-of-New-York/335385365977?ref=ts> Look forward to seeing you on Tuesday (no reservations necessary). Angus Wilson President, The Linnaean Society of New York (LSNY) -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
