Week 6: Bird Class!

-Las Coloradas

Have you ever spent a day in a small boat bouncing among the waves, and then suddenly experienced that exact same feeling as you lay in bed that night? Well, last Thursday night I had a similar sensation, except this time with sound. As I lay falling asleep in my hammock, I suddenly started hearing a dozen young voices calling my name in little Mexican accents, “Ehvan! Ehvan! Ehhhvan! EHVAN!” I opened my eyes and the voices stopped. It had been a long day with the kids in Las Coloradas, but a good one.

This week I helped Niños y Crías give a birding workshop to a group of about 16 kids between the ages of 8-12 in the small coastal village of Las Coloradas. Starting on the morning of July 18, we began a series of games, PowerPoint presentations, crafts, and of course, bird walks. I helped by leading three bird walks, teaching the group how to use binoculars, giving a presentation on the identification of ten common bird species, and leading activities about habitat and reproduction adapted from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s BirdSleuth program. The complete agenda of what we did is below:

Wednesday

·      “Map of Sounds” activity: Kids went outside and closed eyes and listened for five minutes. Came back inside and drew what they heard.

·      Presentation: Origin and Evolution of Birds

·      Presentation: The Importance of Birds and Identifying Them

·      Activity: Draw a bird, something it eats, and where it lives

·      Learning the body parts of a bird via PowerPoint, song, and “Pin the Part on the Bird” game

·      How to use binoculars via PowerPoint and practice with targets

·      Rules and ethics for watching/treating birds via PowerPoint and charades

·      “The Secret Trail”: Practicing observation by walking a small part of a trail and trying to find objects that were placed there.

·      Presentation: “10 Common Birds of Las Coloradas”

·      Bird walk to along beach and through coastal scrub habitat

·      List of birds seen

Thursday

·      Bird walk in coastal scrub habitat

·      Bird list and identification

·      Activity: Draw a bird seen on the walk

·      Craft: Bird Mobiles

·      Trip to the salt ponds to see flamingos and shorebirds

·      Bird list

Friday

·      Review of what we learned so far

·      Presentation: What is Habitat?

·      Activity: The Four Components of Habitat (BirdSleuth)

·      Game: Tag Your Habitat! (BirdSleuth)

·      Presentation: Migration

·      Game: Migration Adventure

·      Activity: The 6 Chapters of Reproduction (BirdSleuth)

·      Activity: True or False? (BirdSleuth)

·      Closing ceremony and certificates

While it may have taken a while to get this part of the summer, it was well worth the wait. The days were long and full, and for the first time this summer I had a regular schedule (for two days) and a scarcity of free time. But for the first time in my life I could go to sleep each night knowing that I had probably made the world a little bit better. Although I have been told that kids from the coastal villages can be wild, rude, and reckless, we were lucky to have an excellent group of well-behaved and enthusiastic kids. Of course, the level of interest varied from kid to kid. What you have to remember is that this is a place where there isn’t even tourism, where the idea of watching birds for fun isn’t quirky or dorky; it’s completely alien. To have even one or two kids interested in continuing birding after the workshop would be a success. Instead, we got sixteen. 

I made a change of plans Thursday and decided to stay in Las Coloradas an extra three nights to help Wilma, the local woman who organized the kids, establish a birding club in Las Coloradas. This weekend I am taking kids on various bird walks in the nearby coastal scrub habitat, teaching Wilma lots about bird identification so that she can lead the kids in the future, and helping Wilma solicit a donation for 12 binoculars from the American Birding Association’s Birders’ Exchange program. I guess you could call this the culmination of my work here this summer.

A couple times in the past I’ve gotten letters in the mail asking me to donate old supplies or money to the Birders’ Exchange. I confess that I declined these requests thinking that I was giving enough with my annual memberships to organizations like World Wildlife Fund and National Audubon Society. How mistaken I was. I can sincerely tell you that any money or equipment you donate the Exchange will make an extremely beneficial difference and is sorely needed. I cannot stress enough how badly Yucatán and probably the rest of Latin America lacks basic birding equipment like field guides and binoculars. As far as I know, there is simply no place to buy these here, even if the average person could afford them. I have tried to emphasize in this blog the importance of teaching kids about nature in order to achieve effective conservation in places like Mexico where regulations are often ineffective. One of the best ways to do this is by introducing them to birding, as birds are abundant and relatively easy to see. Obviously, this cannot happen without binoculars. If you sincerely care about preserving nature and spreading a conservation ethic in Latin America, please make a donation to the Birders’ Exchange here.