Thursday, September 24, 2009

The Sociobiology of Ravens

The Sociobiology of Ravens

with Bernd Heinrich

Thursday, October 1, 2009, 5:30 pm
Yale Peabody Museum Auditorium
Free Admission

The common raven is possibly the most enigmatic bird in the world. It has the widest natural distribution, lives in the widest range of habitats, and is famous for its shyness, tameness, wanton playfulness and caution. In folklore it is often depicted as the Creator, a harbinger of death, or a trickster. Bernd Heinrich, a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont, started working on what seemed to be a simple study of ravens in the wild in Maine over 25 years ago. His illustrated talk of this journey into the world of the raven will show how much of its enigmatic and often seemingly contradictory biology is illuminated by its behavior as a generalist food specialist. Book signing to follow.

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