BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.5//EN TZID:America/New_York X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York BEGIN:VEVENT UID:125@walden.org DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251113T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251113T200000 DTSTAMP:20251030T151218Z URL:https://www.walden.org/events/on-becoming-an-osprey-with-david-gessner / SUMMARY:On Becoming an Osprey with David Gessner DESCRIPTION:Join The Walden Woods Project for a virtual event with David Ge ssner!\n\nAbout David Gessner:\n\nDavid Gessner is the author of thirteen books that blend a love of nature\, humor\, memoir\, and environmentalism\ , including the New York Times bestselling All the Wild That Remains. Gess ner is a professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington\, where he a lso founded the literary magazine Ecotone. His own magazine publications i nclude pieces in the New York Times Magazine\, Outside\, Orion\, and many other magazines. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show T he Call of the Wild.\n\nAbout the presentation:\n\nThis year marks the 25t h anniversary of David Gessner’s Return of the Osprey\, which the Boston Globe hailed as “a classic of American nature writing” and chose as o ne of its top books of the year. For Gessner\, the writing of the book cha nged not just the way he wrote\, but his life. He began his Osprey year in relative ignorance\, barely able to tell a gull from an Osprey. It was a year of obsession and at times it felt like his goal was to become one of the birds. In his presentation\, Gessner will explore the way that obsessi on has been an aid to writing both Return of the Osprey and his newest The Book of Flaco: The World’s Most Famous Bird.  \n\nAbout The Book of F laco: The World’s Most Famous Bird:\n\nThis is a parable of freedom\, wi ldness\, and our urban ecosystems. Flaco has been dubbed “the world’s most famous bird.” From the night in February of 2023 when vandals cut a hole in his cage until his death a year later in a courtyard on the Upper West Side\, his is a story full of adventure and unexpected turns. \n\nN ature writer David Gessner chronicles the year-long odyssey of Flaco and t he human drama that followed the owl who captured the imaginations of New Yorkers and people around the world. Though he’d spent his life in a cag e\, Flaco learned to survive in New York City by eating rats\, squirrels\, and birds. He was an immigrant coming from elsewhere to make it in the bi g city. Central Park\, the island of green in an urban sea\, was his new h ome territory. \n\nFlaco’s urban adventure brought controversy\, pittin g those who felt he should be returned to the safety of the zoo against th ose who created the “Free Flaco” movement. The birding world was fract ured over the ethics of the online sharing of his location that brought ho rdes of observers to view him each day. And his end—with a grim necropsy revealing Flaco had suffered a viral infection from eating pigeons and ha d multiple rodenticides in his system—serves as a Rachel Carson-esque wa rning about the harm we’ve done to our urban environments\, inspiring th e passage of long-sought legislation protecting urban birds and regulation s meant to reduce the use of rodenticides in New York City. \n\nWhen: Thu rsday\, November 13  7:00-8:00 pm EST.\n\nWhere: ZOOM\n\nRegistration req uired. See below. \n\n\n\n \;\n\n \;\n\n \;\n\n \;\n\n&nb sp\; CATEGORIES:Lectures,Special Event END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR