Friday, December 5, 2025 from 7:45—9 pm
In-person event
Location: Morse Auditorium
Free
Register Here: pem.org/events/ecoc-lecture-birds-at-rest?date=2025-12-05&time=07:45
Birds need sleep as much as we do, and they have evolved some unique habits to match their intensely energetic lifestyles. Ornithologist and author Roger Pasquier discusses the evolution and benefits of avian sleep, including recent discoveries that some long distance flyers can even sleep while in flight! Other birds sleep in short bouts of several seconds or a few minutes, then wake up to look around for danger before going back to sleep. Human impacts like artificial light, noise and climate change are changing how and where birds can get a good night’s rest.
A book signing for Birds at Rest: The Behavior and Ecology of Avian Sleep (2025) follows the program.
This program is cohosted by the Essex County Ornithological Club and made possible by a gift from The Essex Charitable Foundation.
Roger Pasquier is an associate in the Department of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History. His career has been in ornithology and in conservation, at BirdLife International, World Wildlife Fund-US, the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Audubon Society. He is the author of several books on birds, including Watching Birds: An Introduction to Ornithology, Masterpieces of Bird Art: Seven Hundred Years of Ornithological Illustration, Birds in Winter and, most recently, Birds at Rest: The Behavior and Ecology of Avian Sleep. A native New Yorker, Pasquier’s favorite birding places are Central Park and the Peruvian rainforest.
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