EXPERTS MAKE FOR BETTER BIRDING

     I lead a birding group for the Red Deer River Naturalists. Now I use the term lead very loosely. I like birds. I have some basic bird knowledge, But I can't identify very many species. I know where the birds are . I can find them. I set up a schedule for taking the group out. However , I can't say right away , "that is a marsh wren." I have to check my bird book.

    Now the group I had were very satisfied with what we did. I was very happy with the group. I could see that their experience paid off and they learned much more about birds. I could also see that there were people who were well qualified to lead the group.

    The group also increased in numbers.

    Then a professional biologist joined us. He's a college teacher. This improved our birding experience many times. More species were seen and with each identification a tremendous amount of information about the bird. So the biologist made birding much more worthwhile.

    Now we only had one biologist for about 8 months when another biologist joined us. These two are both teachers and talk the same language. We all benefited some more.

    So my point today is that we have some great expertise the birding experience is much better.