Sundays at Two Lecture Series

Carl Safina, Author of Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe

Sunday, August 25, 2024

2:00 p.m.

Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center

1061 Bridgehampton / Sag Harbor Turnpike

Co-Sponsored by FLPG and Canio's Books

After rescuing, raising, and releasing an orphaned screech owl, author Carl Safina expected their friendship to end there. However, shortly after her release, Alfie the owl chose to maintain her close connection with Carl and his wife Patricia, and returned to their yard to begin living in the nest box above Carl's studio. Having forged a close bond of trust, Alfie had lived in Carl and Patricia's world, and was now bringing them into hers. 

One can travel the world and go nowhere; one can be stuck keeping the faith at home and discover a new world. Safina’s relationship with an owl made him want to better understand how people have viewed humanity’s relationship with nature across cultures and throughout history. Interwoven with Safina’s keen observations, insight, and reflections, his new book Alfie & Me is a work of profound beauties and magical timing harbored within one upended year.

About Carl Safina

Carl Safina is an ecologist, author, and founding President of the Safina Center. He is the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University. His work centers on animal psychology and the relationship between humans and nature. His newest book, Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe, is a moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl, whose lasting friendship with him illuminates humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

Canio's Books will provide copies of Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe and the children's version Owls in Our Yard, as well as other titles by Carl Safina, available for sale and author signing.

All Sundays at Two events are free and open to the public.

Upcoming Sundays at Two at the LPGNC

Sunday, October 20: Anna Thonis – Box Turtles

Sunday, October 6: Scott Chaskey – Author of Soil and Spirit: Cultivation and Kinship in the Web of Life

Magical Memories Inspire Gift for the Future

Margaret M. McGibbon’s love of the natural world began more than fifty years ago with a visit to her grandfather’s house on Little Long Pond. In her letter to us, Margaret writes that there, and in the house her parents soon bought, she and her brother “spent hours walking through the woods, on our road, exploring the ponds, rowing on the ponds, watching toads, snakes, turtles….We would walk on an old trail, now part of the trail system your organization has protected….We had truly amazing fun.” To help ensure that children can continue to experience what she describes as “the serenity of the area and a “magical place,” she made a generous donation to FLPG in honor of John Sheehan, an “amazing individual” for whom she cared at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. “Nothing stays the same,” she writes, “but I am hoping that Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt will be able to maintain and preserve some of the natural habitats and open land….Your organization is greatly valued for its dedication.”

Please consider making a gift to generations to come: www.longpondgreenbelt.org/donate

To read Margaret's letter in full click here.

Bridgehampton, NY – On July 1st, 2024, elected officials and partners who collaborated in the effort to conserve the Long Pond Greenbelt gathered in front of the newly dedicated sign for the Long Pond Nature Preserve. The project spanned many decades and included efforts from New York State, Southampton Town, Suffolk County, the Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt (FLPG), and the Nature Conservancy. In attendance at the photo event were (L to R): Joe Jannsen The Nature Conservancy, Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, William Sickles CPF Advisory Board, NYS Assemblyman Fred Thiele, FLPG President Dai Dayton, Suffolk County DPW Commissioner Charles Bartha, Kevin Mc Donald The Nature Conservancy, Southampton Town Councilman Michael Iasilli, Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker.

Sagg Swamp Stories

In the Nature Conservancy’s Sagg Swamp Preserve, one of the earliest preserved tracts of land in the Long Pond Greenbelt, lives “a remnant of colonial history, a stand of Atlantic white cedar trees, as important and ubiquitous 300 years ago as iPhones are now.” So recounts journalist Chris Gangemi in his recent East Hampton Star article. To read more about the Swamp’s fascinating history and the rare Atlantic white cedar, click here.

This Saturday - August 3rd in Sag Harbor

Dispose of your hazardous waste