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 Science of SoundNovember 19 – 20, 2025
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The funds raised through our virtual birding seminars support our youth program,
Rio Diablo Birding Camp.
Registration is OPEN!
Access Recordings
Questions? Please email agrilife.birding@gmail.com.
If you are a Texas Master Naturalist, our educational seminars, birding trips, and some special events may count for Advanced Training!
Science of Sound – TMN AT Request Info – 2024
SEMINAR LINEUP
Tuesday – November 19, 2024
Learning to Hear
Kristi Dranginis — Founder Bird Mentor
Presentation Summary
Kristi Dranginis, creator of the annual 6-week Learning Bird Song course (an immersive, mentor-supported 6-week adventure), will share practical tools to train your ears and body to learn and remember bird songs. Join her for stories of the mountain lion, Cape May Warbler, Red-shouldered Hawk, and more as we deepen our instinctive and intimate connection with birds through sound.
Biography
Kristi Dranginis is the founder of Bird Mentor, a resource for live and online courses helping people worldwide build confidence learning about birds and the natural world. Through her courses, students are immersed in the principles of intuitive birding, deep nature connection, bird language, and her innovative model for advanced bird identification. In addition to her 8-month long course, Advanced Skills for Beginning Birders, and her spring
bird song identification course, Learning Bird Song, featured in the Audubon Magazine, Kristi is the author of the book, Identify Any Bird Anywhere, which is now part of an 8-day course by the same name that offers a friendly new approach to learning birds. Kristi also teaches birding at traditional skills events like Rabbit Stick, Winter Count, Saskatoon Circle, Buckeye, Sharpening Stone and for amazing organizations like the Boulder Outdoor
Survival School, The Women’s Wilderness Institute, Crow Canyon Archeological Center, The Vermont Wilderness School, Flanders Nature Center, Eight Shields Institute and The
Powerhouse Science Center.
Wednesday – November 20, 2024
Hearing Spotted Owls to See the Forest
Dr. Damon B. Lesmeister
Presentation Summary
Northern spotted owls are a critically imperiled species that inhabit old forests in the Pacific Northwest. Conservation efforts focused on spotted owls affect management of 25 million acres of federally managed forest lands. Spotted owl population monitoring has recently transitioned to passive acoustic monitoring throughout the geographic range. Considerable research and development of artificial intelligence tools was undertaken to inform and support the transition to non-invasive methods to monitor population trends. By leveraging new technologies that facilitate listening to all forest sounds, the monitoring program has expanded the scope of inference to biodiversity monitoring. The new approach is providing deeper insights into the function of Pacific Northwest forests and assists managers as they face myriad challenges in dynamic landscapes.
Biography
Dr. Damon Lesmeister is a research wildlife biologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. He is the PI of the PNW Bioacoustics Lab and has courtesy faculty appointment with Oregon State University. Much of his research focuses on conservation and management problems related to threatened and endangered wildlife species associated with late-successional forests, especially in the Pacific Northwest. He is particularly interested in long-term studies that examine the effects of disturbance, spatial ecology, resource selection, and predator-prey dynamics. He embraces next-generation natural history using non-invasive methods such as camera trapping, passive acoustic monitoring, scat collection, and sign surveys. Dr. Lesmeister’s research team are developing methods to extract relevant ecological information rapidly and efficiently from massive data collected using non-invasive methods.