Bernd Heinrich: "White Feathers"

Book launch with award-winning naturalist Bernd Heinrich for his newest book "White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Tree Swallows" (HMH, Feb. 2020).  Reading and discussion, Q&A, refreshments and signing.



Free and open to the public.

Award-winning naturalist Bernd Heinrich, author of WHITE FEATHERS (February 18, 2020), observes, discusses, and explains surprising habits of swallows during nesting season. Sprinkled with life-capturing photography and illustrations, this book came to be after one surprising finding that sparked curiosity in Heinrich: a pair of swallows in a nest-box in Maine showed an unvarying preference for white feathers as nest lining. White feathers were not easily accessible to these particular swallows, so why go through the trouble?

He notices, too, the extreme aggressiveness of “his” swallows toward some other swallows of their own kind. And he wonders, given swallows’ reputation for feistiness, at the extraordinary tameness and close contact he experiences with his nesting birds. With these questions in mind, Heinrich embarked on a research journey that led to the publication of WHITE FEATHERS, providing answers about the rich lives of tree swallows during nesting season

BERND HEINRICH is an acclaimed scientist and the author of numerous books, including Mind of the Raven, The Homing Instinct, and A Naturalist at Large. Among his many honors is the 2013 PEN New England Award in nonfiction for Life Everlasting. Heinrich was born in Germany (April 19, 1940) and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont. He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.