The Sippican Lands Trust is happy to announce a new fundraiser, Birds and Bourbon. Get to know the birds of the South Coast with guest speaker Cameron Cox, whose newly published book on tern species and identification which will be available for purchase and discussion at the event! Lessons from a Bird Bum: Birding Tips learned through a misspent youth Cameron spent his early adulthood traveling the country in search of birds. The lessons he learned were earned by sleeping on picnic tables to avoid nocturnal snake snuggling, having his most prominent piece of household décor be a license plate, and numerous encounters with bears with designs on his stash of canned chili and yogurt. Amid a few misadventures were thousands of hours of birding and many more hours spent thinking on how to improve as a birder. You can receive a distillation of the lessons he is learning while not having to experience wrathful squirrels or parched mosquitos. Join us for a lighthearted learning session. For 28 years Cameron Cox, the owner and instructor for Avocet Birding Courses, has been passionate about learning about birds and bird identification. Throughout his twenties he traversed the United States doing bird research fieldwork that allowed him to immerse himself in the study of the birds of North America. It was during this period that he began to question the standard narrative around bird identification that centers on the “Field Mark” as the be-all-end-all of bird identification. Years of searching for answers of how birders identify birds rapidly and accurately eventually led to a new approach in birding, borrowed from seemingly unrelated disciplines, which uses using the techniques that top performers like professional athletes and world-class chefs use to excel. Even more answers were found in the research of scientists studying the human mind, particularly in the fields of cognitive psychology and decision-making. Out of this study, Cameron has sculpted a different way of approaching and teaching bird identification that forms the underpinning of all the Avocet Birding Courses workshops and tours. Visit his website here: https://www.birdingabc.com/