Birding by Ear

One of the most powerful tools in your birding kit is learning to recognize a bird’s sounds as well as you can recognize it by sight. In fact, we can learn to identify birds without ever seeing them, just be knowing their songs, calls, and other noises that give them away. You don’t have to be an expert musician to learn (and remember!) the sweet jumbled notes in a House Finch song, the mewing “tee-yee” of Lesser Goldfinch, or the bubbling cascade of a Canyon Wren singing in the canyon.

This class will meet at the Pritzlaff Conservation Center (PCC) and will remain on the east side of the Garden.

About the Instructor

Rebecca Coulter has been birding in the Santa Barbara region for 20 years. She leads field trips and birding classes at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Santa Barbara City College’s Center for Lifelong Learning. She is head compiler for the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Santa Barbara, and enjoys sharing Santa Barbara’s rich bird diversity and wide range of habitats with new birders. She is particularly interested in teaching how bird sounds can help build identification skills and enjoyment in the field.