Workshops with Alvaro Jaramillo for the Birder and Naturalist

These workshops incorporate ecology, evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and natural history to complement bird identification information taught in class. There are two evenings of instruction and a weekend all-day fieldtrip. Put your birding into an ecological context!

Registration

Download registration form (doc). If you are unable to download the form, please call the Bird Observatory office at 408 946 6548 or contact Lindy Nice, Outreach and Education Director at outreach@sfbbo.org.

Each workshop limited to 15 students; workshops that are full will be marked as [closed]. See below for course descriptions.

Fees: $150 (+$10 one-time registration fee for nonmembers).
Location: All workshops are held at the Sobrato Center for Non-profits in Milpitas (Home of the Bird Observatory!).
The Sobrato Center for Nonprofits is located on 600 Valley Way, Milpitas. Directions

Times: Instruction evenings will go from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.; field trip times and location TBA.

2009 Workshops

Tuesday, June 2nd and Thursday, June 4th (instruction); Sunday, June 7th (fieldtrip)
Bird Sound Workshop WORKSHOP IS FULL. We are taking names for the waiting list.

Birders are attracted to birds for many reasons, aesthetics, the thrill of the chase, their behavior, amazing flying powers and migration….but one aspect of birds that transcends all is their ability to sing. Now one can just sit back and enjoy bird song, but it is also interesting to dig a little deeper and understand a little more about it, and learn how to differentiate songs. SFBBO has developed a workshop that does just that. Now this is not a workshop solely devoted to identifying birds by song, although we will deal with learning bird songs, and in particular the trickier songs we hear in the Bay Area. This workshop does focus though on understanding the ecology and behavior of bird vocalization. For example, we will cover topics on the development of song, song variations, and the purpose of song as well as how to visualize and learn and study bird sounds. This is not a workshop for just experts, but for any birder interested in obtaining a richer understanding of bird voice. Ever wonder why there are bird dialects? Ever wonder why they exist in some species and not others? Ever wonder why some songs are high pitched, and others low pitched? These are the types of questions we will ask, and hopefully answer in this workshop, while we learn some of the local bird sounds! The field trip will aim to listen to bird sounds in nature, but also to attempt to do some simple experiments to see what we learned in the class.