Conversation with Bruce M. Beehler | Flight of the Godwit

Tuesday, September 9 | 5:00 PM ET | In-person and Online

Join us in the library or online for a conversation with Bruce M. Beehler, author of Flight of the Godwit, a chronicle of Beehler’s journey through 37 states and 9 Canadian provinces, from Texas to Alaska to Canada’s High Arctic, to uncover the secrets of 7 magnificent shorebirds, the world’s greatest nonstop travelers. This event is co-sponsored by the Sussex Bird Club.

Flying more than 8,000 miles from Alaska to eastern Australia without stopping to eat or rest, the Bar-tailed Godwit holds the record for the longest nonstop migration of any land bird in the world. Flight of the Godwit invites readers on ornithologist Bruce M. Beehler’s awe-inspiring journey in search of North America’s largest and farthest-flying shorebirds. Driving 35,000 miles between 2019 to 2023, Beehler sought birds he dubs the “Magnificent Seven”: Hudsonian Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Marbled Godwit, Whimbrel, Long-billed Curlew, Bristle-thighed Curlew, and Upland Sandpiper. Beehler interweaves colorful fieldwork stories and rich details on local culture with the natural history and biology of shorebirds—including evolution, the physics of migration, orientation, homing, foraging, diet, nesting, parental care, wintering, staging, elusive “super-migrators,” and the importance of conservation efforts.

Bruce M. Beehler is an ornithologist, naturalist, conservationist, lecturer, and author of nature books including North on the Wing: Travels with the Songbird Migration of Spring, Birds of North America: A Photographic Atlas, and New Guinea: Nature and Culture of Earth’s Grandest Island. He is a research associate in the division of birds at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

For more information or to register, please go to the Adult Program page of our website or contact the library by email (lewes.library@gmail.com) or by phone (302-645-2733).