Naturalist Nights is back for another season of learning, building community, and of course, our famous cookies and tea!

Each winter, our Naturalist Nights speaker series brings in experts to explore topics of the natural world with our community. This year's topic's range from wildlife and public lands to rivers and technology.  

The Naturalist Nights lecture series is a partnership with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) and the Roaring Fork Audubon.

Presentations are Wednesdays at 6 pm at the Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale and Thursdays at 6pm at ACES' Hallam Lake in Aspen. We also offer virtual options on Thursday nights though Wilderness Workshop's Facebook and YouTube channels and Grassroots TV. 

Registration for in-person presentations is greatly encouraged. This registration page is Wednesday night's presentation in Carbondale of “The Language of Birds,” by Nathan Pieplow, Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at CU Boulder, and former editor of Colorado Birds. If you plan to attend Thursday night's presentation in Aspen registration can be found at ACES' website.

Date and Time:

Wednesday, February 21st, 6-7pm

Location:

Roaring Fork High School (2270 CO-133, Carbondale, CO 81623)

About the presentation:

All around us, all the time, the birds are telling us who they are and what they are doing. In this talk, Nathan Pieplow unlocks the secrets of their language. You'll listen in on the pillow talk of a pair of Red-winged Blackbirds, and learn the secret signals that Cliff Swallows use when they have found food. You'll learn how one bird sound can have many meanings, and how one meaning can have many sounds – and how, sometimes, the meaning isn't in the sounds at all.

About the speaker:

Nathan Pieplow grew up in South Dakota, where he got started identifying bird songs by studying the classic “Birding By Ear” field guides in the Peterson series. He is now a sound recordist and ethologist (a student of animal behavior). Pieplow lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado. He is a former editor of the quarterly journal, Colorado Birds, and one of the developers of the Colorado County Birding Website and the Colorado Birding Trail.

Unable to make the presentation in Carbondale? Catch Nathan's presentation the following evening in Aspen or virtually through Wilderness Workshop's Facebook and YouTube channels or Grassroots TV.

Photo credit to USFWS Mountain-Prairie via Flickr.