Winter Lecture: Great Auk – An Extraordinary Bird

Join us for the January Winter Lecture to explore the phenominal life and afterlife of the extinct Great Auk

Shaped by Telegraph Book of the Year, The Great Auk: It’s Extraordinary LIfe, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife, this talk will discuss the sad but salutary story of this historic bird.

The great auk was exploited for its meat and feathers for millennia and hunted to extinction in 1844. Piecing together the life of a bird that no ornithologist ever saw, has been a challenge, but this is a bird whose afterlife is almost as fascinating as its real life: a multifaceted tale of intrigue, mystery and skullduggery. Knowing what happened to this magnificent bird might help us protect those species we have left.

Speaker

Tim Birkhead is a Fellow of the Royal Society and emeritus professor of behaviour and evolution at the University of Sheffield.  His research on promiscuity and sperm competition in birds re-shaped our understanding of bird mating systems. In addition, Tim has maintained one of the longest running studies of a North Atlantic seabird, the guillemot —a close relative of the great auk — on the Welsh Island of Skomer since 1972.

How to take part

Thanks to the generous sponsorship from the Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives.