A film that warns about the mass depletion of songbirds will enjoy a free public screening on the UWindsor campus today. The documentary The Messenger argues that the decline of songbird populations is due to human activity, signalling an uncertain shift in an already-fragile ecosystem.

Moving from the northern reaches of the boreal forest to the base of Mount Ararat to the urban streets of New York, filmmaker Su Rynard brings viewers face-to-face with a remarkable variety of human-made perils that have devastated thrushes, warblers, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks and many other airborne music-makers. These include hunting, light pollution, high-rise collisions, pipelines, pesticides and loss of migratory habitats.

The University community is invited to watch it at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, November 10, in room 104, Toldo Health Education Centre. Following the film, the floor will open to discussion of avian conservation. Watch a trailer here: