Internationally celebrated bird conservationist and best-selling author Scott Weidensaul, will deliver an 
illustrated public lecture titled Saving Birds to Save the Planet, 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 5 in Fleischmann Auditorium at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Three black and white Atlantic puffins with their distinctive orange and yellow beaks perch on a rock. (Courtesy Scott Weidensaul)
Three black and white Atlantic puffins with their distinctive orange and yellow beaks perch on a rock. (Courtesy Scott Weidensaul)

The talk is presented by the Santa Barbara Audubon Society and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Weidensaul will deliver a hopeful lecture about avian recovery, bird reintroduction and habitat restoration, organizers said. He will show how conservationists restored faltering bird populations in the past, bringing back once nearly extinct raptors and waterfowl.

And despite the odds today, all around the world, people are reviving bird populations, providing a roadmap for wider recovery.

In his newest book “The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet,” Weidensaul shows why we should never underestimate the resiliency of birds, and why creating a world that works for birds will work for everything, including humans.

He will trace this inspiring arc from a tiny island off the Maine coast to the bird-rich Danube Delta on the Ukrainian border, where even war has not stopped progress; from vulture restoration in the mountains of Bulgaria to oases of sanctuary for endangered seabirds in the highlands of Hawaiʻi; and across the world’s largest and most intact forest in Canada, where Indigenous communities are permanently protecting hundreds of millions of acres of some of the most important migratory bird habitat on Earth, a win as well for social justice.

Weidensaul is a fellow of the American Ornithological Society and an active field researcher, studying saw-whet owl migration for 30 years, as well as winter hummingbirds in the East; bird migration in Alaska; and the winter movements of snowy owls through Project SNOWstorm, which he co-founded.

He has written nearly 30 books on natural history, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist “Living on the Wind,” and New York Times bestseller “A World on the Wing.”

He is a contributing editor for Audubon magazine, and columnist for Bird Watcher’s Digest.

General admission tickets are $10, available in advance on the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s website, as well at the door if still available.

Courtesy of Chaucer’s Bookstore, books by Weidensaul, including “The Return of the Oystercatcher,” will be available for purchase and signing at his talk.

For more call the Santa Barbara Audubon Society, 805-964-1468.