More pics from Snow Goose Festival

The top photo shows our keynote speaker, Pete Dunne, giving a program on "pishing". In this photo he is demonstrating hwo to use your fingers to make scolding calls. Both of the programs he gave, "The Art of Pishing" and "25 Things that Changed Birding", were excellent. He is a great speaker, very knoledgeable and entertaining, and an amazing birder.


The bottom photo is of one of the MULE (not white-tailed as I had originally noted) deer that hang out in the Lamar Woods area. They seem to wonder what we birders are doing especially when we make pishing noises and mimic bird calls when they are around. The motel I stay in, the Blue Spruce, is located adjacent to the Lamar Woods area and these deer spent the night in the yard of the motel and I found them bedded down there when I took my dogs out before we went to bed.
SeEtta

Pete Dunne's "Secret to Becoming a Great Birder"

Though this was published in the American Birding Association's "Winging It" online publication last spring, I just ran across it. I think Pete makes some excellent points that bear emphasizing: ". . .Don’t just look at them. Don’t just identify them. Watch them, study them, learn what they look like at different angles and different postures."

And Pete Dunne goes on to describe how important it is to do more than just check the birds off your list. Read the full article.

The only thing I would add to Pete's article is that a great birder must be an active conservationist.

SeEtta