Tuning In To Animals

The Garden Club of Newtown host a program about animal communication at its next meeting.

Polly Brody will present her entertaining and informative program, “Tuning in on Animals,” at 1 pm on Tuesday, March 28. The program will be offered at Newtown Meeting House, 31 Main Street.

A former resident of Newtown who now lives in Southbury, Polly Brody graduated from Mount Holyoke College and then returned to school in mid-life to earn a master’s degree in biology from Southern Connecticut State University.  She has traveled widely in Europe, East Africa, Australia and South America.

She has also been an active advocate for the environment and while serving as chairman of Newtown Conservation Commission she helped to preserve 790 acres of prime woodland – a peninsula with three miles of lakefront. She also served on Newtown Water Pollution Control Authority when the plan for municipal sewers was being formulated.

Ms Brody is the author of a poetry collection entitled Other Nations. Her book of essays, The Burning Bush, was published in June 2005 by Antrim House. The book is a collection of lyrical essays with some of her poetry included in the text. The essays reflect upon subjects such as archaeology, bird behavior, aging and Alzheimer’s disease, rain forests and evolution.

As a biologist and experienced field ornithologist Ms Brody lectures regularly on various aspects of animal behavior. “Tuning in on Animals” is about the three major ways in which animals communicate with each other: visual modality, which involves some sort of display to be seen; auditory modality, which is sound of one kind or another; and chemical modality, which might be scent to warn or attract.

She will include birds, mammals and insects such as the timber wolf, American crow, African lion and the herring gull, and describe in detail the honeybee, which uses all three ways to communicate. Ms Brody’s  talent for replicating bird sounds is well known and will be a special part of her presentation.

Copies of The Burning Bush will be available for purchase following the program, and Ms Brody will be available to sign the books purchased that afternoon.

Admission is free, and registration is not required. For more information call 270-1108.