Ideas, Speakers & Lectures

Wilderness Workshop

Wilderness Workshop’s mission is to protect the wilderness, water, and wildlife of western Colorado’s public lands. The organization works across more than four million acres of public lands to ensure their ecological integrity. They have led efforts to designate more than half a million acres of Wilderness and hundreds of thousands of roadless areas in western Colorado. Their efforts focus on protecting public lands from threats such as industrial development, climate change, and short-term exploitation, but perhaps more important is what they protect public lands for – intact and thriving ecosystems, a livable planet for current and future generations, and the moment of awe that can only be experienced in a wild place. Learn more at wildernessworkshop.org.

Naturalist Nights: The Language of Birds with Nathan Pieplow

Aspen Public Radio

Published February 26, 2024 at 1:35 PM MST

This event was recorded on February 22, 2024 at Hallam Lake Nature Center, as part of the 2024 Winter Naturalist Nights Series, in partnership with Aspen Public Radio.

About the Presentation

All around us, all the time, the birds are telling us who they are and what they are doing. In this talk, Nathan Pieplow unlocks the secrets of their language. You’ll listen in on the pillow talk of a pair of Red-winged Blackbirds, and learn the secret signals that Cliff Swallows use when they have found food. You’ll learn how one bird sound can have many meanings, and how one meaning can have many sounds – and how, sometimes, the meaning isn’t in the sounds at all.

About the Speaker

Nathan Pieplow grew up in South Dakota, where he got started identifying bird songs by studying the classic “Birding By Ear” field guides in the Peterson series. He is now a sound recordist and ethologist (a student of animal behavior). Pieplow lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado. He is a former editor of the quarterly journal, Colorado Birds and one of the developers of the Colorado County Birding Website and the Colorado Birding Trail.