Bird Better is a workshop with the sole focus of training better birders. The principles taught in Bird Better form the underpinnings for every other workshop the ABC does. It is the perfect place to start if you feel your birding ability is stagnating or if you just want to improve your skills. It starts with the premise that much of what is taught to beginning and intermediate birders is incomplete or even just plain wrong. We replace bad teaching with better teaching. The goal is that the ideas from Bird Better be integrated seamlessly into your birding and continue to help you improve for years to come. We borrow ideas and techniques from other fields such as professional athletics, where performance is very closely monitored, so your time in the field can be similarly maximized. Additionally, Bird Better’s techniques are based on cutting-edge research on how the brain processes information and how humans actually make decisions, not how we think we make decisions. Interlaced into the entire workshop are expert tips on bird identification. We cover a ton of subject matter, but do so in a fun, informal setting with lots of back-and-forth discussing. Also, there will be cookies.

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See when this workshop will be given by visiting our Events Calendar!

Flight School is everything you wanted to know about identifying birds in flight plus all the things you didn’t know you needed to know but did. Flight School will make your head spin but you’ll enjoy every minute. From American Kestrel to Zebra Dove this workshop covers identifying all types of birds in flight. Book after book has been written about hawk watching and identifying hawks on the wing, however the basic principles of identifying hawks in flight can be applied as effectively to any bird on the wing, you just need the training. Flight School covers more than just traits for individuals; it will introduce diagnostic flock behaviors, picking rarer species out of flocks, identifying mixed species flocks and more. Take flight identification from a weakness to a strength with Flight School.

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See when this workshop will be given by visiting our Events Calendar!

A mudflat or shoreline teeming with shorebirds is one of the most exciting settings for a birder. There is always an air of mystery when shorebirding as, perhaps more than any other group of birds we regularly encounter, there is potential for something weird to occur. It is, however, difficult to pick up on that thread of mystery and excitement if you are cursing at all the brown things that all look the same. Let’s unwind that frustration so you can also revel in the joy of shorebirding. The Unwinding Windbirds workshop is grounded in the principles of the Bird Better workshop, but dives deeper into the specifics of identification unique to the shorebirds. Fortunately, while there is much to learn, most of it can be picked up quickly and easily. After Unwinding Windbirds, you will see a hoard of shorebirds not as a frustrating obstacle, but as an opportunity to leverage the information a flock contains into a means of quickly sorting out all the individual members of the flock. Unwinding Windbirds covers diagnostic behaviors, using vocalizations, tip for honing your eye for structure, and shorebirding fieldcraft. While this workshop covers broad concepts, it is customized to the location and season in which it is given, focusing on local species, juveniles in fall, transitional plumages in the spring, etc.

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See when this workshop will be given by visiting our Events Calendar!