In Travis Audubon’s Introduction to Bird Behavior class, students are introduced to many behaviors that birds engage in as they live their lives. These behaviors are categorized as flight, communication, maintenance behaviors, and seasonal behaviors which includes breeding and migration. Due to the amount of cool information to cover, the information provided is basic. But there is so much more to know and understand about bird behavior and so many cool behaviors to observe in the field! Enter Travis Audubon’s new Bird Behavior Workshops! Each of the workshops will focus on one category of behavior and dive much deeper into the details. The first one to be offered focuses on breeding behaviors and will happen when birds are actively engaged in this part of their life. Workshops focused on other categories will come later.

The breeding workshop will go into detail on topics such as territorial establishment, securing a mate, nest building, mating and laying eggs, incubating eggs, caring for nestlings, and caring for fledglings. The field trips will provide opportunities to see many of these behaviors in action. This workshop will deepen your enjoyment, understanding and appreciation of birds. Students should be able to identify most of the common birds in the Austin area. Having completed the Introduction to Bird Behavior class is highly recommended but not absolutely required.

Shelia Hargis is the instructor for this class. She has been birding for over 25 years and lives and breathes birds! Luckily, she recently retired and can now spend nearly all of her waking hours birding, learning about birds, and/or thinking about birds. Within the last few years, she has become very interested in watching bird behavior to better understand how birds live their lives, and she recently completed the Cornell Lab’s Ornithology: Comprehensive Bird Biology online course with some of her birding buddies. Shelia teaches other classes, gives presentations on a variety of bird topics, surveys birds for the City of Austin and the North American Breeding Bird Survey, participates in numerous Christmas Bird Counts each year, and leads birding field trips. She is Past President of both Travis Audubon and Texas Ornithological Society and is still very active with both of those organizations. She is also a Capital Area Master Naturalist, Class of 2022.

The class will be comprised of three virtual classroom sessions and three field trips. The classroom sessions will be held via Zoom on Tuesday evenings, May 7, 14 and 28, from 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM. The field trips will be held on Sunday mornings, May 12, 19 and June 2 from about 7:30 AM – 11:30 AM. Tuition is $100 for TAS members and $130 for non-members. Registration is limited to 12. If you have any questions, contact Shelia Hargis at shelia.hargis@gmail.com or 512-294-0272.

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The email used to register for this walk will be used to communicate any changes or cancellations due to weather or other factors. Please ALWAYS check your email inbox on the morning of the walk, prior to leaving your home, in case of last-minute changes in the trip plan. Please also check to be sure our emails do not land in your spam folder. When in doubt, please call or email your trip leader. We encourage participants to put the leader’s email address in their safe sender list. Their contact information is included in this trip description.

Payment for a class, workshop, or other fee-based event is due at the time of registration. If payment is not received within a week of registration, the registrant may be dropped from the roster. To withdraw from a class, workshop, or other fee-based event, please contact the Travis Audubon office: 512-300-BIRD (2473) or info@travisaudubon.org.

If a registrant withdraws from a class, workshop, or other fee-based event at least seven (7) days before the first session, Travis Audubon will offer a full refund less a $5.00 administrative fee that helps defray our costs. If the registrant withdraws less than seven (7) days before the first session, no refund will be made. If Travis Audubon cancels the class, workshop, or other fee-based event, we will fully refund the tuition.