Eastern Meadowlark
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to host our 6th annual Young Birders Event, which will be held July 10 – 13, 2014 in Ithaca, New York. The Young Birders Event aims to bring together teenagers (students who will be sophomores, juniors and seniors) with a passion for birds who are interested in pursuing a career with birds. The participants will meet people who have successful careers that involve birds in a variety of ways from ornithological researchers to tour leaders, to audio specialists and computer scientists. To apply fill out the application form and return it by 15 March 2014. Sixteen young birders will be selected and notified in early April. Please share this information with any young birders you know! Thanks to our sponsors of the Young Birders Event: Carl Zeiss Sport Optics, Princeton University Press and the Wild Birds Unlimited at Sapsucker Woods.
The Young Birder’s Event will feature:
- two days of field trips
- presentations by Cornell Lab of Ornithology staff including professors, researchers, and students who will share various ways to incorporate birds into a career
- eBird and field notes workshop
- sound recording workshop
- tour of the Cornell Lab including the Macaulay Library and Museum of Vertebrates
- dinner with Cornell Lab Directors and Staff
In order to provide the best possible experience, the event is limited to sixteen students. Students are selected on the basis of their application answers. Admission is very competitive and we encourage thoughtful responses to each question (limited to 300 words per question).
Application Deadline: 15 March 2014
Tuition: $600 Travel expenses to and from Ithaca are not covered in the tuition.
Meet Chris Wood and Jessie Barry, the coordinators for the event:
Chris Wood is the Project Leader for eBird and Neotropical Birds. He’s a Colorado native who’s been birding since he figured out he couldn’t find dinosaur fossils in his sandbox. Chris has traveled the world in search of birds and is thrilled to be able to share some stories and birding skills with young birders and show how to transform birding into science.
Jessie Barry is the Merlin Project Leader, developing Merlin Bird ID, an app for identifying North American birds. For her first several years at Cornell, she was an Assistant Curator in the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds. Her first word was “duck” and she’s been working on a life list since age 10. Along with Chris, Jessie hosts the Lab’s birding video series called Inside Birding.
For additional information please contact Jessie Barry: jb794@cornell.edu.