A Classic Bird Course, Always New

For 30 years, Spring Field Ornithology has kept birding fresh for students and instructors alike

By Pat Leonard

Instructor Steve Kress with a puffin.

Bill Scholtz

Sticking with something for 30 years is rather astonishing in our high-speed, flavor-of-the-week culture. Yet, this year, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Spring Field Ornithology course will reach that venerable milestone under the guiding hand of Steve Kress, Audubon's Vice President for Bird Conservation.

"This is a way that I celebrate the spring," says Kress. "I celebrate it through what I see and through the eyes of the people who are taking this class?especially the beginners. They're seeing every new bird with fresh eyes."

The course, offered to the public, includes Wednesday evening lectures and weekend field trips led by Kress and birding experts from the Lab and the local community. Participants practice budding birding skills or hone rusty ones.

Jules Burgevin has lost track of how many times he's taken the course, but was hooked after the first time: "I loved it so much that I keep taking it. I tell Steve if I'm in my nineties or over 100 I would still take it!"

Photo by Terry Mingle

Four-time participant Barbara Eden says, "Oh, Steve is amazing. He's such an engaging speaker and he's really funny! He makes it so down to earth that anyone could understand."

The class learns about bird identification, migration, eggs and nests, conservation, courtship, bird song, gardening for birds, and more.

A Purple Sandpiper, one of the many birds sought by students of Spring Field Ornithology.

Thomas Ford-Hutchinson, GBBC

Though there is always a wide range of birding skills in the class, field trip leader Kevin McGowan says he revels in the enthusiasm of new birders. "You know, I've been birding an awful long time," he says. "One of the things I've found is that the more of a particular species you see, the less you really look at it. It's a recharging thing for me to lead these field trips, where even a Yellow Warbler is spectacular."

"It increases your powers of observation," says Barbara Eden. "I notice the birds' aggressive behavior, passive behavior, the way they cock their heads, the way they eat, the way they flirt with each other, sexual messages that the males are sending to the females."

The camaraderie of Spring Field Ornithology is another big reason people come back to share in what Eden calls the "birding spirit." Kress says the social aspect also makes for better birding: "I sometimes compare a group to a supersensory organism with all these eyes looking in all these directions and all these ears."

That organism, says McGowan, is made up of a bunch of "big kids." "These are people who are motivated, they want to be there, they want to figure this stuff out," he says. "I find that personally fun, to be with people who are thrilled with life."

Jules Burgevin says Steve Kress creates that dynamic. "He's a very happy, kind, genuine person. Walking with Kress is like walking with a bird, he's a wonderful bird, he's a Kress-bird."

Even for those who can't take part in the course, Kress says the lesson is there: "Get outside to look at birds, do it with friends and do it on a regular basis. You don't have to be good at this. The people who are doing this are enriching their lives."

Spring Field Ornithology begins on March 28, 2007. To learn more about the course, visit www.birds.cornell.edu/sfo.

For an article about Steve Kress, see the accompanying online article.

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu