Torpor Talks

Last Wednesday of the month, at four o’clock, in the entrance range. Forty-five minutes, sixty seats, and it runs after the Drowse has ended so nobody is whispering through it.

Whoever is running a study that month gives the talk. It is not a lecture and it is not a tour. It is closer to a progress report, including the parts that are not going anywhere.

There is no age limit. The talk is in the entrance range rather than in the canopy, so the twelve and over rule that applies to the Drowse itself does not apply here. It is pitched at an interested adult, and children who are interested in birds generally do fine.

Recent subjects

• Why forty birds go down inside a twenty minute window with no signal we can record, and the four explanations still on the table after six seasons.
• What the second brain hemisphere is doing during torpor, and whether our recording method is good enough to tell.
• Fifteen years of flowering dates, and what happens to the birds when a plant moves three weeks earlier than it used to.
• The season the Lantern Hours numbers went the wrong way, what we changed, and what we would do if it happened again.

Questions are the best part of it and there is always time for them.