Photo: Black Redstart
Staff and volunteers greatly enjoyed a course on Bird Identification last week run by local bird 'guru' and all round wildlife expert Mike Langman. The course involved practical skills in aiding the huge subject of bird ID. Mike taught us simple methods of sketching birds to aid identification, we all found this a really interesting exercise - Mike asked us to draw a sketch of a Puffin from memory then we checked our drawings with an image. This was really effective in showing us the detail required to draw the bird, even though we all knew it well, there were many details in the markings that we were unaware of. Sketching is a great aid in the field to help you identify birds when you get back to a book, it also really makes you look very closely at the markings and colours of the plumage that you might otherwise miss. In the course we also learnt about bird calls, a great way to identify birds at this time of year when all you often see are birds passing overhead without landing, especially on Berry Head. We did plenty of practise out on Berry Head, and everyone went away feeling more confident in their identification skills, and fired up to get out there and enjoy the fantasic array of wild birds seen at this time of year.
Mike is also a very talented wildlife artist, producing artwork for many books and visitor centres please visit his website at www.mikelangman.co.uk
