Bird Migration: In-Person Program with Twan Leenders

Join us Thursday, November 19th, for an in-person program on migratory birds with Twan Leenders. Set within the exhibition galleries for Flights of Feathers (on view through January 17, 2027), Leenders will go through the fascinating (and sometimes perilous) journeys many birds take in the spring and fall. Twan Leenders is a federally licensed bird bander and has spent many years tracking and banding migrants both here in the United States, as well as in Central America, both on their breeding and wintering grounds. He promises some “interesting information to share” pertaining to the wintering grounds the migratory birds call home!

Twan Leenders is a biologist from the Netherlands with a degree in animal ecology and lifelong experience in conservation management. For more than 20 years, his work with birds, mammals, plants, and especially tropical amphibians and reptiles has taken him to various places on the planet. After nearly 10 years at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, he now applies his expertise to our region with Everwild Land Trust (previously the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy. Twan has authored two field guides centering on amphibians and reptiles of Costa Rica. He is a herpetologist and enthusiastic wildlife photographer with years of field experience in Central America.

Roger Tory Peterson. Snow Geese. Photograph. Courtesy of the Peterson Family.