ONLINE Course: Audubon at Home: Bird Migration

Birding in Alabama is a seasonal feast. In spring, neotropical migrants from Central and South America make the perilous trip across or around the Gulf of Mexico, headed north. Some pass through Alabama on their way to the northern US and Canada, while some join our year-round resident birds and stay to raise their young in the fields and forests of Alabama. In the fall, the Alabama breeders return to their winter homes in the south, and other migrants from farther north pass through Alabama on their way back to their southern wintering grounds. But fall also brings a whole new population of birds from the north to spend the winter right here in Alabama.

As your skills advance, it’s helpful to know where to look for birds as the seasons change. New technology has aided in the search for birds, as it has also advanced our understanding of how birds migrate. Besides explaining the basics of bird migration, the class will cover some of these new discoveries—focusing on birds that spend at least part of the year here in Alabama. The class will also serve as an introduction to eBird. A joint project of Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, eBird makes use of more than 100 million bird sightings annually from birders and ornithologists around the world. For the first time in human history, we are gaining real insight into the mysteries of bird migration—insights that are available to anyone with access to the internet.