Presenter: Robert Vallieres, Author
Date/Time: Tuesday, February 25, 10-11am
Cost/Registration: $5.00 Donation to the American Birding Association. You must register in advance. The event is limited to 30.

Robert C. Vallieres struggled to find his “new normal” when he returned home after serving in the military. An accident in Kuwait left him suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and internal
injuries, leaving him in constant pain. After clinics, bottles of painkillers, and behavior modification pills, hope seemed to vanish. Then a local weekly newspaper ad caught his eye: a bird-watching trip to see raptors in the mountains of New Hampshire. An Emily Dickinson poem that states, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune—without the words, and never stops at all,” sprang to his mind. This is a story of self-healing from crippling “invisible” wounds through the help of birds. The problems of TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder do not have definitive solutions. His story of recovery offers a winged hope to thousands of military personnel who suffer these physical and mental battles.