Tri-colored heron ©Wm Burt (15.2 x 20)
Potapaug Audubon presents ‘Water Babies: The Hidden Lives of Baby Wetland Birds’ Thursday, Jan. 7, at 7 p.m. at the Old Lyme Town Hall, with Old Lyme resident William Burt, who is a nationally acclaimed naturalist, photographer and author.
This is a free program and all are welcome. Refreshments will be served.
For 40 years, photographer Burt has chased after the birds few people see: first rails, then bitterns, nightjars, and other skulkers – and now these elusive creatures of a very different kind: the Water Babies. These fledglings are the subject of Burt’s book of the same title, which was published in October 2015 by W. W. Norton/Countryman.
The “babies” are the downy young of ducks, grebes, gallinules and shorebirds, herons, and other wetland birds – those that get their feet wet, as it were – and challenging they are, to birder and photographer alike: quick-footed, wary, and well-camouflaged, to say the least; and ephemeral.
You have only a week or two each year in which to find them. But above all else, they are endearing. From the comic-monster herons to the fuzzy ducklings and stick-legged sandpipers, these tots have personality, and spunk. You see it in their faces, each and every one.
Red-necked phalarope ©Wm Burt
To find these youngsters and adults, Burt prowled their wetland breeding grounds each spring and summer for some seven years, all over North America, from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico. The result is a portrait of these wild birds of the wetlands as both young and old, unknown and known, new and familiar.
Burt is a naturalist, writer, and photographer with a passion for wild places and elusive birds – especially marshes, and the shy birds within. His feature stories are seen in Smithsonian, Audubon, National Wildlife, and other magazines, and he has written three previous books: Shadowbirds (1994); Rare & Elusive Birds of North America (2001); and Marshes: The Disappearing Edens (2007).
Burt’s photo exhibitions have been shown at some 35 museums across the U.S. and Canada.
Old Lyme’s Memorial Town Hall is located at 52 Lyme St., Old Lyme, CT 06371.
For more information, call 860-710-5811.
