"MNS LAMIBA Beginner Birding" Training Workshop Day 1

25th-27th January 2011

Silverpark Resort, Fraser's Hill

The Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) organised a LAMIBA (more info: Local Area Monitoring of Important Bird Areas) birding workshop for beginners with the following objectives:

• To learn about basic birding techniques
• To familiarize with the local birds and habitats and
• To understand the needs of bird tourists.

It was held at Silverpark Resort, Fraser's Hill and consist of classroom(theory) and outdoor(practical) sessions.

First up, Dennis Yong started off the workshop by introducing what is all the hype about birdwatching.
Dennis himself caught the "bird flu" at a tender age of 16 and has been birding for 40 over years. He went on to explain the two types of binoculars(bins), namely the roof-prism and porro-prism.

We went out for a little practical course to test out our bins!

My group. Group Leader Terrence Ang in the middle!

Participants looking for a bird?

Off we went back into the cozy warm room for more theory. Learnt some field craft like how to be prepared for birdwatch!
The clothing a birder wear is important! Big NO to bright bling shirt! Wearing dull, earth tones would be preferred as this raises the chances of encountering more birds!

There's a bird!? Where where!

Over there! next to the big green tree!! ...?

Dennis showed us the method to indicate a bird's position.

 Mark then gave a presentation on bird anatomy

Kim Chye sketching

Practise using your bins wherever you are!

And then we had some indoor Bird I/D activity. Glenda would put up pictures of birds on the slide and participants were given a limited time to take down notes of the bird and then ID them!

A participant's bird sketch

The part where we were taught on using Field Guides was very important as I used to think that these books with "fake drawings" of birds are not helpful, and I would rather opt for a photographic guide.

Well, NOT the case now!

Recommended books by "si fu"

Day 1 was mostly classroom activity but it certainly wasn't a ho-hum class at all!
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Read Day 2
Read Day 3