Birding for Beginners
Nurture your love and knowledge of birds with a beginner’s birding class designed to connect you with the birding community and improve your skills in bird identification. We will spend quality time observing and discussing birds and their behavior, to build your understanding of the sights, sounds, behaviors, and natural history of a selection of our feathered friends.
This is a five-week class which will be divided into two sections: online on Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8 pm and in-person field trips on Saturdays or Sundays from 8 am to 10 am.
Each online class will include lectures and discussions with a panel of local birders. We’ll talk about why we bird, and we'll get into the tools and skills birders use to collect observations. We’ll talk about the places we’ll go, the species we’ll see, and why birds want to be there. Each participant will receive an optional “ID assignment” to perform in the field. In field trips, we’ll employ all of our senses to experience and record the birds in our midst. In the end, you'll have about 100 new birds in your brain!
We hope that in this class you’ll connect with nature and birds, with yourself, and with other birders. We welcome a diverse learning community. Let us know if you have access challenges and need assistance.
Binoculars are a must. Loaners will be available. You should definitely have a notebook and a smartphone if you use one. Carpooling will be encouraged, especially when the trips are not bike/transit-friendly.
Recording of each Zoom session will be available to class participants for a limited period of time.
This course is offered twice per year: in the Spring and the Fall.
Spring 2025 Course
Week Online Sat OR Sun Theme
1 Sept 11 none none What is a birder?
2 Sept 18 Sept 20 Sept 21 What is a bird?
3 Sept 25 Sept 27 Sept 28 How birds vary I
4 Oct 2 Oct 4 Oct 5 How birds vary II
5 Oct 9 Oct 11 Oct 12 Birds and Habitat
6 Oct 16 none Oct 19 What’s next and Birding Blitz
In order to maintain leader to student ratios, we encourage students to select either Saturday or Sunday and not jump between the two.
Registration opens Sept 1 at 9:00 am. There are only 40 slots in the course, and it fills up really quickly.
To attend the entire course:
Individual rate: $190 non-members
$150 members
Are you an experienced birder or a passionate beginner who would like to join the leader team for this course? Are you interested in being a student? Questions can be sent to the course facilitator, Jen Hajj, at jhajj@sandiegobirdalliance.org.
Sign up opens September 1 at 9:00 am, Pacific Time.
