The Last Heath Hen In Words and Images, a Book Discussion and Film Screening with Christie Lowrance

Join us for an afternoon exploration of the now extinct Heath Hen with author Christie Palmer Lowrance. Lowrance has just released a new illustrated book, The Last Heath Hen: An Extinction Story, that is a gently told, historical account of Booming Ben, the last Heath Hen. The book covers the dwindling days of a species of birds on Martha's Vineyard in the late 1920s and early 1930s and the heroic efforts to save it, including those of Bowdoin’s own biology professor and ornithologist, Alfred Otto Gross. The book discussion will be followed by a public screening of the last known footage of the Heath Hen. This previously unknown footage was discovered by Alfred Otto Gross’s grandson, Ed Minot, in 2015, in his mother’s attic. The film was preserved and digitized in 2018 with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Christie Palmer Lowrance holds a B.A. degree in English from Hobart & William Smith Colleges and an M.A. degree in Professional Writing from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Lowrance is also the author of Nature’s Ambassador: The Legacy of Thornton W. Burgess (Schiffer Publications, 2013), an extensive biography of the renowned 20th century naturalist and children’s author and a friend of Alfred Otto Gross.

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Co-hosted with: Bowdoin Naturalists, Bowdoin College Library

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