By Alexis Puchek

A tried-and-true Texan, Noreen Baker was born and raised in rural Texas, just outside of San Antonio. Growing up on about 20 acres in the country kept Noreen around nature most of the time – her dad was an active birder and would come inside and pull out the bird book to show Noreen the species he would spot on their property. It was this time with her dad that helped inspire her love of nature and her desire to find and spot those birds herself. Although initially interested in studying Biology, Noreen started her college education at Texas A&M in Chemical Engineering. However, she quickly realized she wanted to do something more closely tied to the outdoors and helping the environment, and switched over to Engineering Geology for her undergrad degree. She followed that up with a Master’s degree in Hydrogeology and has worked for an environmental consulting company for over 30 years.

Noreen’s passion for birding is simple – she loves birds and she loves getting everyone around her interested in noticing and talking about birds, which is such a perfect introduction to her and her role as an Ask-A-Birder expert with Travis Audubon.

Noreen’s Start With Travis Audubon

Noreen moved to Austin in 1991 and joined Travis Audubon as a member soon thereafter. Focusing on her career and family kept her busy for the first 20 or so years, so she didn’t start volunteering officially with Travis Audubon until 2010 when other responsibilities lessened. When Noreen first started birding, it was more of a solitary activity, but the explosion of information on the internet and social media has made it much easier to connect with people and participate in birding activities. She attended several Travis Audubon field trips and eventually started volunteering, first as a field trip leader and then by giving bird presentations to various groups, but really connected with the role of an Ask-A-Birder expert where she could connect with all sorts of people and talk about all sorts of fascinating bird topics such as migration, plumage variations, providing food and habitat for birds, and lots of other the things that make birds fun and interesting.

What is Ask-A-Birder?

Ask-A-Birder is an online platform that Travis Audubon provides where anyone can reach out and ask a bird-related question. While it’s primarily geared toward those in the Central Texas area (it is Travis Audubon after all!), Noreen has had people from as far away as Michigan with questions. While she may not know the answers to some of those out-of-state inquiries, she appreciates being a resource to those individuals and enjoys the challenge of providing an answer to their question and providing information on additional resources to continue the learning experience.

Being an Ask-A-Birder liaison doesn’t mean she has to have expert knowledge in all things birds and birding. It’s a healthy, fun, and challenging intersection between using her own expertise she’s learned over the years and sleuthing to figure out the answers to questions she doesn’t yet know herself. Noreen really enjoys being able to have an open dialogue with people and often continues the conversation beyond the initial question. She had one family ask what they should do about a bird nesting on their porch, and she used it as an opportunity to talk about the law that protects nesting birds and to have a dialogue on how they could introduce their child to the wonders of a bird choosing to nest on their porch, how to look for fledglings (baby birds), and to learn about where those birds will go and what they will do in their lifetime.

How did Noreen get involved in Ask-A-Birder?

Noreen wanted to find a way to get people to care ­– about birds, wildlife, and conservation, and to care about saving not just birds, but entire ecosystems. She believes it’s much easier to get people to care when they have a personal connection with a topic – the more they see, the more they notice, the more they learn, the greater the chance that they will care and be willing to take positive actions. And that’s what helping people who reach out to Ask-A-Birder is all about. Noreen enjoys the opportunity to connect with people, not just by answering their basic question or by providing a simple bird identification, but by providing a combination of stories and information that hopefully will not only enhance their knowledge and enjoyment of birds but will also inspire them to care more and do more to ensure that our wonderful diversity of birds are here for generations to come.

Noreen has found that even with all the resources we have today – whether it’s eBird or Merlin, books and magazines, or websites – it can still be difficult for people to find a place to get the answer they’re looking for; sometimes you just need to be able to communicate with another person. Travis Audubon’s Ask-A-Birder program provides this avenue for people to reach out and it provides a way for Noreen to connect with others and to share her knowledge and love of birds. It was this desire for connection to others and to provide useful and valuable information to those who struggle to find answers, that inspired her to raise her hand as a volunteer with Travis Audubon’s Ask-A-Birder program.

Why should someone consider volunteering for Travis Audubon?

“At some point, most of us get to a place in our lives where we want to do something more for the things we care about, something more beyond our own little circle,” Noreen says. Travis Audubon provides that opportunity, and plays such a great role in education and conservation, and really needs volunteers to keep the work going. You know that working at Travis Audubon makes a difference.

Noreen suggests that if you want to make things better, if you want to advance bird awareness and conservation, volunteering and even just being a Travis Audubon member helps do just that. There are a variety of ways in which you can provide support and showing up is a great first step.

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If you’re ever interested in volunteering at Travis Audubon, know that there are many ways to get involved based on your interests, abilities, and comforts. I’m building my own comfort in leading and co-leading field trips and the expectations individuals have real-time. I love that there are opportunities like Ask-A-Birder that allow individuals to take a bit more time and supplement with research to answer the interesting questions that our local birders have. Get in touch and we can help you find the ways that suit your interests, whatever they may be!