DERBY - Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and The Naugatuck Valley Audubon Society will host Phantasms & Fallacies: The Pitfalls in Bird Identification presented by Julian Hough, longtime member of the Connecticut Avian Rare Records Committee at 7 p.m. Sept. 21 at Kellogg Environmental Center.
In this entertaining talk, Hough answers questions about why some individual birds are misidentified by large groups of people.
Hough will discuss how we all are susceptible to making mistakes in the field.
Originally from England, Hough spent time birding around the British Isles in pursuit of rare birds.
His focus on field identification led to extensive travel to India, Nepal, China, Australia, Europe, and Central and South America.
Hough has worked as a research biologist for both Long Point (Canada) and Cape May Bird Observatory (USA) and was part of a team that documented ‘morning flight’ (the directed and often visible movement of migrant songbirds in the first few hours after sunrise) at Cape May in the late 1980s.
Hough formerly worked as a journalist on Britain’s top-selling bird magazine, Birdwatching. His work has been published in many books and periodicals, notably the recently award-winning “Rare Birds Where and When” that was written by the late Russell Slack.
He currently resides in New Haven with his young son, Alex.
Kellogg Environmental Center is at 500 Hawthorne Ave. A donation of $5/adult is requested.
Children under 12 are free.
Light refreshments will be served.
This is a press release from DEEP.
