Birding Your Patch

Instructor: Kimberlie Moutoux (kimberliemoutoux@gmail.com)

Birding Your Patch will help you to gain a love and understanding of the birds in your local community.  Participants will pick a local patch to become acquainted with, bird regularly, and adopt.
This class will focus on our local birding picture, including the plants that support the birds, and give participants confidence in bird identification in the community. 
We will learn about 75 common birds, 30 common plants, and 6 local habitats, and how these habitats dictate the local of birds. We will learn how to use eBird and Merlin Bird id to find and document our local birds. Each week we will visit 2 of the participant’s local patches and as a team help to see what is possible in each patch. 

Participants will select one of the birds from their patch for in-depth study and share their findings with the class each at an evening meeting. 

Because the field trips will depend on the participants’ local patches, it isn’t possible to provide information about the locations or describe the trails in advance.

In fall 2025, the class will be open to birders in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties only, so we are able to make it to all our patches. (GGBA plans to develop a version of this class for birder who live in the East Bay.)

Recordings of the lecture presentations will be available to class participants  for a limited period of time.

Introductory Tuesday evening class by Zoom: September 30, 7 to 8 pm.

    (Zoom link will  be provided when you register.)

Six Tuesday evening classes by Zoom: October 7, 14, 21, 28; November 4, 11: 7 to 8:30 pm.

Six three-hour Saturday field trips: October 11, 18, 25; November 1, 8, 15: 8 to 11 am.

Field trip locations will be announced in class and by email.

Class Size: Limited to 12 participants.

Price:  $380 ($304 for GGBA and SMCBA (San Mateo County Bird Alliance) members, a 20% discount).
SMCBA members need to contact Davena Gentry, davena@smcbirdalliance.org, to obtain a code to enter into the GGBA registration system to get the member price.

Registration opens at 1 pm on Wednesday, August 6 and closes at 11pm on Sunday, September 28.