Join San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory as wildlife and conservation photographer Sebastian Kennerknecht discusses the basics of bird photography, including settings, composition, equipment, how to get close to your subject, ethics, and his mental approach when photographing birds. Sebastian Kennerknecht is a wildlife and conservation photographer with over fourteen years of experience visually covering wildlife and […]

Only male birds sing, right? Wrong! In fact, this widespread notion has a lot more to do with human cultural and geographic biases than it has to do with nature. In this talk, Nathan Pieplow explores the often-overlooked songs of female birds. You’ll hear the pair duets of meadowlarks and blackbirds, the musical songs of […]

Alvaro Jaramillo of Alvaro’s Adventures returns to share more about our local raptor population, living at the Wavecrest Open Space. Wavecrest is the single most important site on the San Mateo Coast for wintering raptors, which can be seen hunting in the property’s broad fields. Raptors and other species rely on its expansive grasslands, wetland […]

Instructors: Whitney Grover And Keith Maley 7 sessions on: Mondays and Sundays Birds are living their fascinating lives all around us even in this second most densely populated city in the U.S. Join Golden Gate Audubon Society to learn about bird identification, behavior, migration, habitat, song and more, and increase your appreciation for nature here […]

Instructor: Eddie Bartley Fall shorebirding in the San Francisco Bay Area is world class. By mid-August, hundreds of thousands of “wind birds” have winged their way from their northern breeding grounds to the globally significant San Francisco Bay – a key portion of the WESTERN HEMISPHERE SHOREBIRD RESERVE NETWORK . Shorebirds by Bob Lewis In three two-hour Zoom […]

Featuring Bob Lewis Thursday, August 19 – 7 p.m. Eastern Crested Berrypecker, a New Guinea endemic, by Bob Lewis Islands play a key role in both the evolution of new avian species and the extinction of others. Because of their isolation, birds that arrive on islands evolve separately from their parent group and eventually become […]

Learn about local birds and their stories through a presentation and accompanying photography all provided by guest speaker Judy Kramer. Join Judy Kramer and the Environmental Volunteers to learn about the stories of local birds, told through their photographs in “Every Bird Has a Story”. Explore their fascinating lives and behaviors; with a focus on […]

Sleuthing into the secret lives of wood ducks – new research reveals a complex underworld of a unique California bird. Please join Dr. John Eadie, Dennis G. Raveling Professor in Waterfowl Biology at UC Davis to hear about the natural history, ecology, and conservation of this interesting and beautiful local bird! This lecture will be […]

This summer, somewhere in Canada, a Blackpoll Warbler will hatch, fledge, and grow to young adulthood. Come August, this half-ounce bird will fly 3,000 miles to the Maritime provinces and then out over the Atlantic Ocean to catch a northwest tail wind that will take it south to around Bermuda. A northeast trade wind will […]

Snowy Plover Conservation in the Bay Area: Successes and Challenges in a Shifting Landscape The Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) is a federally threatened, ground-nesting shorebird species that breeds, roosts, and forages along the Pacific Coast from Southern Washington down to the tip of Baja California. While their typical habitat across the range is […]

Instructor: Clay Anderson 10 sessions on Thursdays and Saturdays Venue: Zoom and field trips to Lake Merritt Come celebrate nature on Lake Merritt. Our nature journal class spans the myriad issues surrounding Lake Merritt’s natural world and the practice of nature journaling. Come share your love of journaling and commune with others  of like mind. This year-round […]

Speaker: Wendy Dreskin Famous for having the biggest concentrations of large mammals on the planet, Tanzania is also an exciting birding destination.  This presentation will feature birds travelers would be likely to see on a safari to Northern Tanzania in the winter, before migratory birds have left for their breeding grounds, as well as some of […]

The Bay Area is rich in varying habitats that are home to many bird species. As the seasons change, some birds arrive, others depart, and some just stay here at home. We’ll talk about many bird species that can be found in our gardens, with some discussion of things one can do to enrich these […]

Instructor: Alex Henry For Bay Area birders, finding rarities in the fall is part of the fun. Our location on the edge of the Pacific Americas Flyway brings many species of birds through our area on their way south. Birds that normally migrate over the ocean get blown off course and land in the Bay […]

Featuring Dan Airola Thursday, September 16 — 7 p.m. via Zoom Male Purple Martins in Sacramento, by Lisa Alvarez Purple Martins have been in long-term decline in California due to factors such as habitat loss, competition with the European Starling, disturbance from construction projects,  and declines in their insect food supply due to  neonicotinoid insecticide […]