Improve your birding skills — or get started in birdwatching with some friendly, expert help! Golden Gate Audubon offers classes for all levels of birding experience. Please register for our classes online (easy and fast). If you don’t have access to a computer, call our office at (510) 843-2222 and we will return your call as soon as possible.
CANCELLATION POLICY: As a small organization with limited office staff, it is challenging for us to handle last-minute cancellations. If you need to cancel, we will refund your registration fee if :
(1) You withdraw more than two weeks before the start of the class, AND(2) We can fill your spot with someone from the class waiting list.Please note that there will be a $5 cancellation fee to cover the credit card transaction costs for your sign-up and cancellation.
For information on GGAS classes at the Lake Merritt Rotary Nature Center go to https://goldengateaudubon.org/classes-rnc/
Winter 2019-20 Birding Classes
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A Deep Dive into Diving Birds
January 7 through 25
This class is now full.
California and the Bay Area provide winter homes for many species of pelagic birds that are adapted to life in a deep water environment. This is a short course on the natural history and identification of commonly found members of the families Alcidae (puffins, murres, murrelets, guillemots), Gaviidae (loons), Podicipedidae (grebes) and Anatidae (ducks, geese, and swans). This grouping allows a close study of adaptive strategies that are commonly engaged by those species. Many members of these families are typically bichromatic in winter: dark above and white below, and share other commonly-held adaptive strategies such as salt glands and waterproofing that enable them to live in deep water environments. These convergent features can make these winter visitors challenging to identify, so the class will cover divergent characteristics that will help us better differentiate them in the field. The class offers illustrated explanations of these strategies as well as dietary practices and cycles of breeding, molt, and migration. Presentations will be supported by the California Academy of Sciences’s specimen collections as well as by photographs from the archives of International Bird Rescue.
- Three Tuesday evening classes, Jan 7, 14, and 21 ̶ 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
- Two three-hour field trips, Saturday Jan 18 and 25
- Instructor: Megan Prelinger
- Limited to 20 participants
- $100 for GGAS members, $135 for non-members
- Location: California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, SF (Detailed directions will be provided.)
Registration will open at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6. Starting at that time, click HERE to register. Once the class is full, you may register to be on a waiting list.
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Beginning Birdwatching
January 6 through February 15
This class is now FULL.
Learn about birds that spend the winter with us, both migrants and seasonal visitors and year-round residents. Instructor Anne Hoff will familiarize you with the tools of the trade − binoculars, field guides, and the best local places to watch birds. In Monday evening classroom sessions, she’ll introduce you to birds and their habitats. Then on the following Saturday, she’ll help you spot them in the field! No prior birding experience required. Note: You will need to own a pair of binoculars or borrow them from a friend for this class, but they are not necessary until the first field trip.
Please note that field trips meet at the planned trip site. Car pooling is encouraged.
- Six classes: Monday evenings, Jan 6, 13; Tuesday evening Jan 21 (due to MLK holiday); Monday evenings Jan 27, Feb 3, 10 – 7 to 8:30 p.m.
- Six Saturday morning field trips, 9 to 11:30 a.m., Jan 11, 18, 25; Feb 1, 8, 15.
- Instructor: Anne Hoff
- Limited to 16 participants
- $140 for GGAS members, $175 for non-members
- Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, directly across the street from Ashby BART in Berkeley. Free parking in the lot behind the center.
- Registration will open at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6. Starting at that time, click HERE to register. Once the class is full, you may register to be on a waiting list.
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Advanced Beginning Birdwatching
January 8 through February 16
A FEW SPACES STILL AVAILABLE!
The Advanced Beginning class is geared to people who have already taken our Beginning Birdwatching class, OR who have birded once a month (on average) for at least a year. Participants must have and use binoculars confidently. Field trips will be to woodland, wetland, and shore locations. This class will help you with some of the more challenging IDs and further develop your skills using resources and references. In addition, conservation issues and community science programs to address them will be presented.
Please note that field trips meet at the planned trip site. Car pooling is encouraged.
- Six Wednesday evening classes, Jan 8, 15, 22, 29; Feb 5, 12 − 7 to 8:30 p.m.
- Six three-hour field trips on the Sunday following each class, 9 a.m. to noon
- Instructor: Anne Hoff
- Limited to 16 participants
- $150 for GGAS members, $185 for non-members
- Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, directly across the street from Ashby BART in Berkeley. Free parking in the lot behind the center.
- Registration will open at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6. Starting at that time, click HERE to register. Once the class is full, you may register to be on a waiting list.
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Birding by Ear – Winter
January 16 through February 22
This class is now FULL.
Birds communicate by making a variety of sounds all year long, even in the middle of winter. This class focuses on bird sounds heard at this time of year in our area. We will learn to locate and identify birds by chirps and calls as well as songs of some species that are now starting to sing.
Field trip locations can be found on the instructor’s website, denisewightbirds.com/.
- Six Thursday evening classes, Jan 16 to Feb 20; 7 to 8:30 p.m.
- Six three-hour field trips on the Saturday following each class, 8:30 – 11:30 a.m.
- Instructor: Denise Wight
- Limited to 20 participants
- $150 for GGAS members, $185 for non-members
- Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, directly across the street from Ashby BART in Berkeley. Free parking in the lot behind the center.
Registration will open at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6. Starting at that time, click HERE to register. Once the class is full, you may register to be on a waiting list.
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Birds of the Bay Area
January 28 through February 18
This class is now FULL. You may register to be on the waiting list.
It’s winter! It might even rain! Ducks and shorebirds are wintering in the area. Geese and cranes are in the Central Valley and hawks are in the air! Join an enthusiastic group of birders to experience birding locations in our area while learning about bird ID and a variety of other bird-related topics.
Field trip locations can be found on Bob Lewis’s website, http://www.wingbeats.org/.
- Four Tuesday evening classes, Jan 28 to Feb 18; 7 to 8:30 p.m.
- Three 3-hour field trips on the Saturday or Sunday (your choice) following each class plus one weekend long field trip on Feb 8-9 (this is the correct updated weekend).
- Instructors: Bob Lewis and Rusty Scalf
- Limit to 40 participants
- $100 for GGAS members, $135 for non-members
- Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, directly across the street from Ashby BART in Berkeley. Free parking in the lot behind the center.
Registration will open at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6. Starting at that time, click HERE to register. Once the class is full, you may register to be on a waiting list.
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Raptors in Winter
January 28 through February 16
This class is now FULL. You may register to be on the waiting list.
Year-round resident hawks, falcons, and eagles of the greater Bay Area and the Central Valley are joined by a number of wintering migrants (including Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks). We will explore the rhythm of their lives and discuss identifying juveniles and adult birds, including birds in flight. We will travel to eastern Alameda and Contra Costa, and to Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. One of the nice things about raptors is that we don’t have to be on scene at daybreak to get good looks at these birds, so we can travel a bit further afield.
- Three evening classes: Wednesday Jan 29; Monday, Feb 3 and 10 − 7 to 8:30 p.m. (Note that this class meets on both Wednesday and Monday evenings.)
- Three 3/4 day field trips on Sunday Feb. 2, 9, 16.
- Instructors: Maureen Lahiff
- Limit to 20 participants
- $100 for GGAS members, $135 for non-members
- Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, directly across the street from Ashby BART in Berkeley. Free parking in the lot behind the center.
- Registration will open at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6. Starting at that time, click HERE to register. Once the class is full, you may register to be on a waiting list.
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Master Birding class – 2020
Golden Gate Audubon Society and California Academy of Sciences are very excited to offer our Master Birding course, for the seventh year. The objective of the course is to help 20 ambitious students enhance their birding and environmental leadership skills, and develop 20 new active conservation community members for GGAS, The Academy, and other Bay Area institutions.
The Master Birding Program is an advanced class, and will be one year in duration, with 11 classes and 11 field trips. Classroom meetings will take place at The Academy to take advantage of The Academy’s collections and facilities. Field trips are designed to reinforce class subject matter and to get firsthand experience with the breadth of birds that occur in the Bay Area. Prior to taking the course, prospective students are expected to be able to identify California birds at an “intermediate level” (100+ species by sight, and 25+ species by sound). To successfully complete the program, students must commit to volunteer at least 100 hours with a MB designated organization (GGAS, The Academy, and a long list of other Bay Area birding or conservation organizations) over a two-year period, and participate in at least 70% of the classes and field trips.
Upon completion of the program, graduates will have developed a field notebook documenting sightings of over 200 bird species, will know how to identify the more difficult bird species, will learn about avian physiology, behavior and taxonomy, and will develop an understanding of avian habitats and bird communities. Graduates will have participated in over 20 organized field trips, developed a backyard (local patch) list, and will have made a 10-minute presentation to the class on an avian topic of their choosing. Other details of the course will be presented to interested candidates.
Instructors are Jack Dumbacher, Eddie Bartley and Bruce Mast. Fee for the class is $750 for non-CAS or non-GGAS members, $650 for members. The class will start Wednesday February 5th, 2020, and will meet one Wednesday of each month, 6:30 – 9:00 PM. The class will finish in December 2020. Field trips will typically take place on the weekend immediately following the class.
Interested individuals should complete and submit the Enrollment Questionnaire.
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Non-GGAS classes
City College of San Francisco Continuing Education offers ornithology classes taught by Joe Morlan, coauthor of Birds of San Francisco and the Bay Area and Birds of Northern California. Although these are not sponsored by Golden Gate Audubon, many of our members have taken and enjoyed them.
The fall 2019 sessions of these classes have been cancelled. They may be reinstated in Spring 2020. Check the CCSF web site for updates.