The meeting will be held at the Academy of Natural Sciences, BEES classroom (3rd floor) and online.
Meeting agenda:
7:15 PM: Zoom opens
7:30-8 PM: Club business
8 PM: Presentation followed by questions (might start earlier if club business finishes earlier).
Please register for the meeting whether you will be attending in person or via Zoom. Then watch for the meeting link in your email. Disregard the meeting link if you will be attending in person.
Eagle, Quetzal, Grackle: Ornithological understanding in the Aztec world
Speaker: Victoria Sindlinger
Five hundred years ago, in the middle of a mountain lake, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán blossomed with dazzling aviaries and keen naturalists. Sadly, this heritage of ornithological knowledge has been all but forgotten – or erased – by Western tellings of history. With a strong emphasis on eyewitness accounts, Victoria’s work aims to open our eyes to this world of careful observation and sophisticated bird husbandry. As an avid birder of Indigenous Mexican heritage, Victoria is passionate about ensuring this important facet of history continues to be acknowledged. This presentation reveals Aztec society’s lost legacy of spot-on descriptions of birds and their behavior, accurate understanding of bird anatomy, and thoughtful bird care. Incredibly, this bears many clear similarities to how we observe, capture, and care for these exquisite creatures in the modern day.
Victoria has enjoyed nature, particularly birds, from a very young age. She has been a devoted volunteer at Rushton Woods Preserve’s songbird and saw-whet owl banding stations since 2015. In September of 2021, Victoria had the honor of joining the eBird review team for Philadelphia County. Her passion for conservation led to the creation of “Hope in the Night,” which is an art installment honoring window-killed birds and their power to inspire change. This installment is currently displayed at the Discovery Center. Victoria has long been fascinated by ethno-ornithology and loves learning how different cultures view and interact with birds. Currently, she is an undergrad student of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has founded a student bird club.