Birding Courses / Training Programs

ABA Institute for Field Ornithology Workshops aim to provide ABA members with a series of high-quality birding workshops to expand their birding horizons, using only the very best teachers. The workshops focus on all of bird biology, including life history, ecology, behavior and field identification.

You may register online or contact the workshops registrar for a registration form or for more information at ABA Institute for Field Ornithology, ABA, 4945 N 30th St, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80919; 719-578-9703x237; ifo@aba.org.

Bird Banding Courses Are you looking for new birding frontiers? The world of bird-banding awaits you! Banding is a fantastic opportunity to see birds up close, learn about their plumages, molt sequences, and life habits. By participating in established banding programs, you can contribute in a direct way to their conservation. Imagine capturing a bird such as a Scarlet Tanager or MacGillivray's Warbler and knowing that it traveled to Latin America and returned to the exact spot at which you banded it the year before. Holding and then releasing such birds is an experience not soon forgotten.
     The Institute for Bird Populations (IBP), based in California, is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering a global approach to the preservation of birds and their habitats. IBP coordinates a large-scale cooperative program called Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) that consists of a network of almost 500 banding stations throughout the continental U.S. and Canada. A wide assortment of contributors operates these stations, including government agencies, non-profits, educational institutions, independent banders, and IBP itself. Birds banded at MAPS stations provide critically-needed information on productivity and survivorship that can help identify the causes of long-term population declines. MAPS is endorsed by the National Biological Service and Partners in Flight and relies increasingly on the contribution of data from volunteer cooperators.
     The operation of a MAPS station requires a commitment of one morning (six hours) every ten days between May and August for a total of seven to ten mornings a year, all of which can be on weekends.
     For more information about IBP's bander-training program please visit IBP's website at www.birdpop.org or contact Bander Training, The Institute for Bird Populations, PO Box 1346, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956; phone 415/663-1436; fax 415/663-9482; email Dani O'Grady dogrady@birdpop.org. It may change your life! To read about other birders' experiences while on IBP training courses, see A Bird in the Hand by David Hayes in the August 1997 issue of Birding .

Also check out birding/ornithological camps for young birders