Birds Bush and Beyond offers a variety of community education services such as public speaking engagements, field day events and walks ‘n’ talks. 

 

Examples include:

• Illustrated presentations about birds, conservation and bird-watching experiences to countless dozens of groups such as the Wildlife Art Society of Australia, BirdLife Australia and numerous Field Naturalist and Landcare Groups.

 

• Appearances at field days including the Bruny Island Bird Festival in Tasmania and the Warby Range Woodland Birds Field day in north-east Victoria to mention a couple.

 

• Guided walks and talks at numerous events such as ‘Nature on the map’ run by LaTrobe University at Bendigo, ‘Arboreal Marsupial Discovery Day’ run by the Whroo-Goldfields Conservation Management Network in the One-Eye Forest at Heathcote, and ‘Birds for Beginners’ run by the North Central Catchment Management Authority on Gunbower Island on the Murray River.

 

 

Photography workshops

The ‘Art and Craft of Bird Photography’ workshops are run on a regular basis at Newstead in central Victoria in conjunction with Geoff Park (Natural Newstead).  Similar workshops can be presented to other audiences at their invitation.  If you are part of a natural history or conservation group and you can attract 10 or so people who want to improve their nature photography skills, then please feel free to enquire.

 

Workshops begin with a two hour theory session which introduces digital photography and then focuses on equipment, camera settings, basic technical aspects of nature photography, the theory behind field tehniques, and basic photo editing and processing.  This is followed by a two hour field session where we demonstrate field techniques, experiment with technical aspects and settings, and actually find some wild subjects to point our lenses at.  We conclude with a Q&A session and review/constructively critique participants photos taken in the field. The workshops are interactive and conducted in a friendly format.  There is no such thing as a silly question!

 

Stay tuned for more workshp opportunities in the Wangaratta area of north-east Victora, to be announced soon!