The Potomac Valley Audubon Society’s monthly program for October will feature a presentation about freshwater mussels.

The program will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14 at the Hospice of the Panhandle facility in Kearneysville. Admission will be free and everyone is welcome to attend.

The speaker will be Matthew Patterson, a biologist who teaches at Shepherdstown’s National Conservation Training Center.

He will review the conservation status and life histories of freshwater mussels, with a particular focus on the mussels of the Potomac River.

Patterson has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Kentucky State University, and a Master’s from Virginia Tech. Before coming to NCTC, he worked as a research scientist at Kentucky State and then as a US Fish and Wildlife Service Fisheries Biologist at West Virginia’s White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery.

The Hospice facility’s address is 330 Hospice Lane, Kearneysville. The Audubon events will be held in the main meeting room of the facility’s Main Office building.

There is plenty of parking at the facility.

For more information go to www.potomacaudubon.org or contact Krista Hawley at adultprograms@potomacaudubon.org or 703-303-1026.