Category: Bird ID Workshops - San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory

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Student Gains Confidence with Focusing and Storytelling Through Photography Workshop

9/1/2023

By Guest Blogger Maya Xu

A photo of Maya Xu with a camera around her neck and a parrot on her arm

“How do you tell the story of the bird?” That was the biggest takeaway I had from Sebastian Kennerknecht’s photography workshops.

I first got bitten by the photography bug after taking a freshman introductory seminar in conservation photography with Stanford’s Professor Sue McConnell. I’d spent years taking questionable iPhone photos of birds through my binoculars, and I’d originally gone into the class thinking I’d leave with the skills to take better photos with my dad’s old DSLR (a Nikon D60, which I still love.) I left with a completely new understanding of how photography could be used to touch people’s hearts and inspire them to take part in conservation efforts...

Bird Photography Workshop Takes Birding to the Next Level

2/17/2022

By Guest Blogger Alex Cho

I have been birding for about nine years and quickly realized how important photography was for me as a birder. Shortly after I began actively birding, I would get home and want to look at the birds I had seen in closer detail or note certain details. However, I often found that I had a hard time recalling so many different details, and there were also instances where I wanted to capture a particular bird or scene. That is when I realized how valuable photography was going to be for me.

Artistic Middle School Student Focuses on Bird Photography

2/3/2022

By Guest Blogger Anastasia

I started birding early last year. Ever since then, birding has become one of my favorite things to do. Birds are always doing something interesting. Sometimes they are eating, flying, or singing. It is so wonderful knowing that every time I go birding, I am going to see something different. It could be a different bird, or a new behavior, but I know that it will be new and interesting every time. I enjoy both drawing and crocheting birds, and I just love birds in general. With my love of birds came a love of bird photography. Capturing fleeting moments with the push of a button (or in this case, a click of the shutter button) is super fun for me. With birds, they are literally ...

Student Explores the Wonder of Winter Sparrows

11/30/2021

By Guest Blogger Alex Cho

I am an avid sixteen-year-old birder living in the Bay Area. I began paying attention to birds over a decade ago, but really started birding when I was eight after picking up a bird guide at my local bookstore. I attempted to make my own bird guide, which was quite a challenge for an eight-year- old. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out like a Sibley’s Bird Guide. Since then, birding has been a passion for me.

Today, birding has become a family affair. My family ...

Biologist Reconnects with Nature Through Bird Photography Workshop

8/11/2021

By Guest Blogger Johanna Rivera

There is so much to learn from our more than human kin. I am fascinated by our feathered relatives. In the morning when I first wake, before I open up the curtains to take a peek at the day, I enjoy guessing what the weather is like outside according to the bird sounds. As a California Naturalist and Field Biologist, I love spending time outdoors observing wildlife. Living amongst the coastal redwood giants, surrounded by wetlands, rivers, beaches ...

Artist Turned Naturalist Deepens Appreciation for Birds at ID Workshop

7/11/2021

By Guest Blogger Jose Barrientos

I have always had a fascination with birds, growing in Arandas, Jalisco Mexico my Abuelito kept many birds, he fed them, cared for them and I would help him with his daily tasks. But later in life, birds became part of my art inspiration, birds were my subjects and my muses but it was last year that I really started to learn and to be able to identify, both visually and auditorily, many species of birds.

When my family and I moved to the states we ...

Middle School Student Fascinated by How Our Brains Recognize Birds

7/11/2021

By Guest Blogger Anastasia

I started birding a few months ago, and it has quickly become my favorite hobby. I have always loved animals, but birds are definitely my favorite. Something about them just captivates me. The fast flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. The steady soar of a raptor. The cheerful “cheeps” of a baby killdeer. I love observing and identifying birds, and I am always thrilled to see a “lifer”! Photographing birds is another hobby of mine, as well as drawing and painting birds.

When I heard about the Bird ID Techniques Workshop with Alvaro ...

Grad Student Learns the Finer Points of Bird ID at SFBBO

3/19/2021

By Guest Blogger Marie Cerda

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that birding changed my life. I moved to San Francisco and ended up getting a job at Alcatraz Island, a National Park Site but also a bird sanctuary and colonial nesting site for hundreds of waterbirds.

I was working in visitor services and had never felt that parks and the outdoors were necessarily places that I belonged. I was born in Houston, Texas, to very poor teenage parents and I am Mexican-American. Growing up, I didn’t see myself in the people who were in these spaces.

Working on Alcatraz changed that, when my first winter there a co-worker and I discovered a Peregrine Falcon on the water tower - though we didn’t know that’s what she was at the ...

Student Develops an Appreciation for Ducks in Waterfowl Workshop

3/19/2021

By Guest Blogger Esmeralda Ramirez

I was given the opportunity to be able to attend, for the last two Wednesdays, the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory's Waterfowl ID Workshop, through a scholarship fund. Going into the workshop, I truly had no idea, or any background knowledge about ducks.

I was not a very informed person, and despite me being a beginner through this workshop, I really was able to learn a lot, as well as develop a new sense of fondness for ducks in general.

I was able to learn many different things, such as how to spot, and be able to tell which ducks are which, as well as learning about different types of ducks mating, and special characteristics that they have.

My favorite part to learn was about the “hybrid” ducks, and the ways that even ducks have evolved, and I very much enjoyed being able to see the diversity in the duck species, which I had never been exposed to before. I ...

Birder Steps into the World of Waterfowl in SFBBO Bird ID Workshop

3/17/2021

By Guest Blogger Caressa Wong

My absolute favorite thing about birding is the ability to step into the private lives of birds. I’ve watched Acorn Woodpeckers squabble en masse and have spent long enough staring at a California Towhee to discover that it picks through the leaf litter with a sudden jump instead of a polite scratch. Meanwhile, on trails and city streets I watch so many people rush past without ever knowing that was going on a few feet from them.

But, observant as I am, there is so much I still don’t know about birds--one of those being how to identify waterfowl. Despite lots of experience with shorebirds, I never gave much thought to waterfowl. That’s why when I saw SFBBO’s Waterfowl Workshop with ...