[SEMCO] Osprey Lecture on July 26

[Sheri DeRosa]

For more information, 
contact:                                                   For immediate 
release: July 19, 2007
Kate Madin, Sea Grant Educator
508-289-3639
kmadin at whoi.edu


Special Presentation on Ospreys and Book Signing
by Natural History Author David Gessner

Who hasn't marveled at the globe-spanning migrations of great birds and 
wished to take flight with them? Now you can come closer to sharing that 
experience: Join noted author David Gessner on July 26th, to hear about 
his recent book Soaring With Fidel: an Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to 
Cuba and Beyond, which details his adventures following ospreys on their 
long annual migratory route and his relationship to one particular bird.

The presentation will be Thursday, July 26, at 4:00 p.m. in Redfield 
Auditorium, Water Street, Woods Hole, co-sponsored by the Woods Hole Sea 
Grant program and the Woods Hole Library. Gessner will be talking about 
the book "and the way that migration connects our place, Cape Cod, to so 
many different places in the world -- Cuba, South America, and more."

Ospreys are large, black-and-white, fish-eating raptors that can be seen 
on Cape Cod from March to October, catching food and raising young. 
Then, like other summer residents, they depart for winter habitats far 
to the south.
 
Not long ago, they were critically threatened by DDT pollution and loss 
of habitat and nesting sites. Their numbers have recovered, assisted by 
the DDT ban and by people building nest poles and platforms that the 
birds use and return to each year. The birds and their large, twiggy 
nests are again a common sight on the Cape.

"We tend to feel an ownership of the nests near us, and the individual 
birds we watch here," Gessner said. "But they spend more than 50% of 
their year on their journeys, and other places where they stop are as 
important to them as here."

An assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North 
Carolina, Wilmington and author of several natural history books, 
Gessner is an unabashed osprey enthusiast. He has written two books 
about these birds and has a Web site devoted to them. "About a decade 
ago I fell hard for ospreys," he said on the site.

Gessner's first book about these birds, titled Return of the Osprey: a 
Season of Flight and Wonder, tells of the successful effort to save 
ospreys and their return to Cape Cod.

For his current book, Soaring With Fidel, Gessner followed several 
satellite tagged birds and the general course of opsrey migration from  
Cape Cod to Venezuela and back, a journey of some 7,000 miles across two 
continents. Gessner captures the feel of the places the birds visit from 
both a bird's and human point of view. But the story covers metaphorical 
territory as well.

Reviewing the book, Publishers Weekly said, "At the outset, Gessner 
tells readers that "[t]his is not a bird book"; indeed, it's more about 
what Gessner came to understand about himself by spending day after day 
studying one particular species of bird, the osprey. Gessner... turns 
his attention to migration--why ospreys migrate to Central and South 
America every winter, and what they do when they're there.... Gessner 
writes beautifully, with grace and humor."

Copies of Soaring With Fidel will be available for purchase and signing 
after the talk. The book is also available in local bookstores and 
online sources. More information can be found at  www.davidgessner.com 
and Gessner's osprey Web site, http://ospreyworld.com/.

The presentation is free and open to the public; families are especially 
encouraged to attend. Light refreshments will be provided. Parking is 
available in on-street, metered spaces. For more information, contact 
Woods Hole Sea Grant at 508-289-3639 or the Woods Hole Library at 
508-548-8961.

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