Potapaug Audubon presents “Rare & Elusive Birds of North America” with William Burt, wildlife photographer on Thursday, Jan. 3, at the Old Lyme Town Hall, 52 Lyme St. at 7 p.m.
Take a journey with Burt by means of a slide lecture to the marshes, plains and prairies, swamps and woodlands in search of the rails and bitterns, nightjars, and other “mystery birds” that birders long to see.
Burt is a naturalist, photographer and writer with a passion for wild places – especially marshes – and the elusive birds few people see.
His photographs and stories are seen in Smithsonian, Audubon, National Wildlife and other magazines, and he is the author of four books: Shadowbirds (1994); Rare & Elusive Birds of North America (2001); Marshes: The Disappearing Edens (2007); and the new Water Babies (2015).
He lectures often, and his traveling exhibitions have shown at some 35 museums across the U.S. and Canada – including The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The New Brunswick Museum, The Calgary Science Center, The Liberty Science Center, The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
In 1989, for an exhibition of Burt’s photography of marsh birds, Roger Tory Peterson wrote the following:
William Burt is a perfectionist whose photographs of rails and other shy and elusive birds of the wetlands are unquestionably the finest ever taken. I admire his technical skill and perseverance (14 years) in getting these pictures. He has set a new standard.
Most recently he has been photographing downy young birds of the wetlands, from the Arctic tundra to the Gulf of Mexico: The Water Babies.
Burt lives in Old Lyme, Conn.
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
For more information, call 860-710-5811.