Birding Skills Workshops for Adults
presented by Sylvia Gallagher
Mature teenagers who are interested may also enroll with their parents
Sea and Sage’s popular Birding Skills Workshops are conducted by Sylvia Gallagher who has been teaching birding for over thirty years. Each workshop meets once a week for three hours. The number of weeks varies with the material to be covered. Usually there are accompanying field trips, too. In order to accommodate all who want to sign up, multiple sections are offered.
Sylvia has prepared comprehensive sets of worksheets which accompany photos or sound clips. These worksheets call your attention to important identification features of the birds and also convey other useful information about each species — behavior, habitat, etc. Each week, we fill in the worksheets for a group of new birds and view a set of practice slides, or listen to a set of practice sounds covering the previous week’s birds.
Sylvia Gallagher’s Trip Diaries (1977 – 2011)
Birds of Southern California – (Oct – Dec 2023)
The Introductory Visual Workshop
The BIRDS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Introductory Visual birding skills workshop is offered every fall.
LIST of Birds covered in this workshop.
This ten-week workshop presumes no previous knowledge of birds, but people who have been birding casually for awhile should also consider taking it. Four half-day field trips accompany it. All succeeding workshops build on this one.
The class covers the following groups:
— Birds of the neighborhoods
— Birds of playing fields and parking lots
— Birds of mudflats and shallow water
— Birds of the ocean shore
— Birds of the open country
— Birds of prey
— Birds of the streamside woodland
— Birds of bays, lakes, and marshes
Each person will attend ten weekly meetings via Zoom. For these, you’ll need a computer and good internet access. Although sharing computers is possible, for best results, each person should have his/her own computer in a separate room.
The 2023 class begins the 1st week in October and ends the middle week of December. The usual sections are Tuesday mornings, Wednesday evening, and Thursday evening
Enrollment for this workshop will begin in Sept, 2023
Learning CA Bird Sounds – (Jan-March 2024)
The Introductory Aural Workshop
The LEARNING CALIFORNIA BIRD SOUNDS workshop is offered in alternate years. The workshop usually begins in January and ends in March. The next workshop will be held in 2024.
LIST of Birds covered in this workshop
Prerequisite: Birds of Southern California – the Introductory Visual Workshop or visual familiarity with the common birds on the coastal side of the southern California mountains.
Introduction to the sounds of birds: You will learn to identify the sounds of 60 species of common birds that are frequently heard before they are seen. In the process, you will learn how to describe bird sounds and how to use sonograms (graphs of time vs. frequency) to visualize the sounds. There will also be lectures on the nature of sound and how birds produce it, how birds adapt their sounds to their environment, uses of songs and calls, learned vs. innate sounds, and many other subjects. Many field trips will be offered and you can make your own selection of which ones to attend.
This is an AURAL class that will be held in 2024.
Birds of Southern California – (Oct – Dec 2024)
The Introductory Visual Workshop
The BIRDS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Introductory Visual birding skills workshop is offered every fall.
LIST of Birds covered in this workshop.
This ten-week workshop presumes no previous knowledge of birds, but people who have been birding casually for awhile should also consider taking it. Four half-day field trips accompany it. All succeeding workshops build on this one.
The class covers the following groups:
— Birds of the neighborhoods
— Birds of playing fields and parking lots
— Birds of mudflats and shallow water
— Birds of the ocean shore
— Birds of the open country
— Birds of prey
— Birds of the streamside woodland
— Birds of lakes, ponds, and marshes
The 2024 class begins the 1st week in October and ends the middle week of December. The usual sections are Wednesday evening, Thursday morning, and Thursday evening
Enrollment for this workshop will begin in Sept, 2024
Learning More CA Bird Sounds – 2025
An Advanced Aural Workshop
The LEARNING MORE CALIFORNIA BIRD SOUNDS workshop is presented in Jan – March (perhaps longer), 2025.
Prerequisite: Learning CA Bird Sounds.
This is an AURAL class that will be held in 2025.
Birds of Southern California – (Oct – Dec 2025)
The Introductory Visual Workshop
The BIRDS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Introductory Visual birding skills workshop is offered every fall.
LIST of Birds covered in this workshop.
This ten-week workshop presumes no previous knowledge of birds, but people who have been birding casually for awhile should also consider taking it. Four half-day field trips accompany it. All succeeding workshops build on this one.
The class covers the following groups:
— Birds of the neighborhoods
— Birds of playing fields and parking lots
— Birds of mudflats and shallow water
— Birds of the ocean shore
— Birds of the open country
— Birds of prey
— Birds of the streamside woodland
— Birds of lakes, ponds, and marshes
The 2025 class begins the 1st week in October and ends the middle week of December. The usual sections are Wednesday evening, Thursday morning, and Thursday evening
Enrollment for this workshop will begin in Sept, 2025