North on the Wing—Travels with the Songbird Migration of Spring
Bruce M. Beehler, PhD Research Associate, Division of Birds, Smithsonian Institution

In this illustrated lecture, naturalist and ornithologist, Bruce Beehler, will recount his hundred-day-long 2015 field trip following the spring migration of songbirds from the coast of southeastern Texas up the Mississippi and thence into the boreal forests of northern Ontario— breeding ground of many of the beautiful and vocal North American wood warblers. Along the way, Beehler visited various migratory bird field projects as well as scores of local, state, and national parks and refuges critical for the preservation of the migration phenomenon. He also spent time in an array of eclectic and beautiful rural communities from southern Louisiana and Mississippi through the Heartland and to the northern limit of roads in Ontario, land of the Cree and Ojibwe First Nations peoples. Beehler’s informal goal was to spend time with all thirty-seven eastern wood warblers on their prime breeding habitat. In pursuing this objective, he saw a lot of deeply rural North America. His presentation touches on wildlife, nature conservation, migration research, American history, and rural culture.

Beehler will be signing his popular book, North on the Wing (Smithsonian: 2018), after the lecture.