Birding Festivals in the Adirondacks:
2014 Great Adirondack Birding Celebration
Keynote Speaker Noah Strycker

The keynote speaker for the 2014 Great Adirondack Birding Celebration is Noah Strycker. His topic is “Bird World,” an exploration of the parallels between bird and human behavior. Approaching bird behavior from new and surprising angles, Strycker explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, self-image in magpies, life-long loves of albatrosses, particle physics of starling flocks, and other mysteries—revealing why birds do what they do, and how we can relate. With humor and wit, and drawing deep from cutting-edge science and anecdotes from the field, Strycker’s presentation will leave you with renewed inspiration about our close connections with birds.

Noah Strycker. Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica

Strycker is Associate Editor of Birding magazine, former columnist known as “BirdBoy” in Wild Bird magazine, and frequent contributor to other bird-related publications. His articles have appeared in National Wildlife, Birder’s World, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Living Bird, Birds and Blooms, and Popular Birding, as well as several field guides, government documents, and other print media. Strycker spent three months, from November 2008 to January 2009, living and studying Adelie Penguins at Cape Crozier, Antarctica. He wrote about his experience in his first book -- Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica.

Strycker has lived in Amazonian Ecuador, the Australian Outback, the Farallon Islands, and Costa Rica. He has also studied birds in Panama, Fiji, Mexico, New Zealand, Antarctica, Hawaii, Alaska, Maine, California, Michigan, and Oregon, helped Taiwan design an ecotourism program, and searched for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Florida, in between birding trips. His “life list” is approaching 2,500 birds on six continents – one-fifth of all the world’s species. Strycker is currently back in Antarctica spending more time with the penguins.

Strycker's second book explores the parallels between bird and human behavior.

Strycker's second book -- The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human -- will be released in March 2014. The book is an entertaining look at the lives of birds, illuminating their surprising world and deep connection with humanity. The Thing with Feathers reveals why birds do what they do and offers a glimpse into our own nature. Drawing from personal experience, cutting-edge science, and colorful history, Strycker shows how our view of the world often, and remarkably, can be seen through the experience of birds.