Birding by Ear at the Great Swamp Conservancy
A beginner’s program to developing listening skills for novice bird-songers will be held at the Great Swamp Conservancy of Canastota by instructor Steve Kinne. Have you been amazed by birders who can immediately pick out and identify birds from their song alone?
If you are a novice “bird songer” and would like to begin developing this skill, join Kinne in this course. He is a GSC member and NYS Volunteer Master Naturalist who developed and teaches this course for the Onondaga Audubon Society. He will share with you ways to hear and “listen” to woodland /field birdsongs, describe characteristics of particular songs, and use these to help guide you to ID. The emphasis is not on final identification but rather on skills that will lead to that identification.
Four classroom sessions (with homework) will present key birdsongs for analysis….with lots of repetition! Participants will practice listening and describing what they are hearing, learn characteristic portions of songs, and discover the bird’s identification.
Following classroom sessions, several field trips will then provide an opportunity to put these new skills to work.
Class size is limited to 10 people; novice bird-songers only. Contact Kinne at 315.882.3684 for more information and to sign up.
Classroom dates:
- Wednesday evenings, April 25 through May 16, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the GSC Museum building.
Field outings:
- Wednesday, May 23, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Great Swamp Conservancy, Canastota
- Wednesday, May 30, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Erie Canal Towpath, Chittenango (location TBA)
- Saturday, June 2, from 8 to 10 a.m., Erie Canal Towpath, Chittenango (location TBA)
- Sunday, June 10, from 8 to 10 a.m., Great Swamp Conservancy, Canastota