October 22 - 27, 2024 and WOW Encore December 6-8, 2024
Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival
2024 Wings Over Water Keynote Speaker - Kenn Kaufman
A keen naturalist from the age of six, Kenn Kaufman burst onto the birding scene as a teenager in the 1970s, pursuing birds all over North America—an adventure later chronicled in his cult-classic book Kingbird Highway. After several years as a professional bird tour leader, taking groups to all seven continents, he transitioned to a career as a writer, editor, and illustrator. Most of his energy currently goes into writing books and painting bird portraits. The newest of his 14 books, The Birds That Audubon Missed, is published and in our gift shops. Kenn is a field editor for the National Audubon Society, a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, and the only person to have received the American Birding Association’s lifetime achievement award twice.
Keynote Talk and Dinner. saturday October 26 6-9 pm.
-Discovery, Rediscovery, and the Sense of Wonder-
Two centuries ago, a handful of naturalists trekked around eastern North America, competing to find the last few bird species still unknown to the European tradition of science. What was that experience like for them? Kenn Kaufman delved into that period in history as research for his newest book, The Birds That Audubon Missed, and found surprising connections to our own time. Despite all the changes in the world, the adventures of those pioneers have many parallels in the experience of birding today. In this program, Kenn will celebrate discovery and rediscovery, the lure of the unknown, the complexity of nature, and the endless power of birds to delight and amaze us.