Be Happy for Sparrows

Workshop and Field Trip with Roger Leblanc

Saturday June 11, 2016

It’s a fact that when you are starting out in birding there are some groups of birds that are harder than others to wrap you mind or binoculars around. Some beginners don’t even want to talk about flycatchers or gulls. And it’s true that some birds could drive you to get interested in plants! But there is a much easier group of birds that still gives people a lot of problems. The sparrows or LBJs (for “little brown jobs”) are birds that are relatively easy to find, don’t tend to hide that much, show fairly good field marks, and have recognizable songs. But still, identifying them will give most people a hard time at first. Why? Well as the LBJ nickname suggests they don’t have a lot of colors, they are relatively close to each other in size and there are a fair number of species to pick from.

But don’t despair -- help is on the way. Nature Moncton is offering a hands-on workshop on sparrows. Starting with a short one-hour indoor refresher on the sparrows of NB we will then head outdoors to the Riverview Marsh where we will concentrate on sparrows to try to put in practice what you have learned inside. The objective will be to find in the field as many as we can of the 7 or 8 species that can be found fairly easily in the region at this time of the year. Our own Roger Leblanc will lead this workshop / outing and will share with us the tricks of the trade that he has honed over the years for putting names on the pesky LBJ’S. Things like song, habitat, behavior and head pattern will be pointed out and studied in the hope that the LBJs will become ETCs (easy to call).

And in addition to sparrows, there are always many more other birds, including lots of waterfowl, on the marsh – so we may be surprised by other interesting species!

Saturday June 11, 8:00 to 9:00 (workshop); 9:30 to 12:00 (field)

**Workshop will be held in Community room at the Riverview Sobey’s, 1160 Findlay Blvd., Riverview

Registration with Louise Nichols at nicholsl@eastlink.ca. 

Phone: 939-9054.

Cost of workshop/field trip is $8 payable at the door . All are welcome, Nature Moncton member or not.


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