Get ready to explore the world of birds!

With the lockdown lifting, we are looking forward to facilitating more frequent interactions with children who want to learn about birds, or get started with birdwatching. We are launching a series of walks in Bangalore which will cover a host of themes to get children excited about birds. 

These walks will offer holistic understanding of birds, going beyond just spotting and identification. They will be a combination of bird walks and nature-related activities or games in an outdoor setting such as a lake or a trail. 

They will take place once a month. The details will be announced on our social media handles as well as updated on this blog post. These workshops are specifically designed for children, they might specify an age group and will require registration to attend. Since there will be limited seats at each event, we will accept participants on a first come first serve basis with a preference for the desired age group mentioned in the details. 

The walks will be free of cost but a Rs. 100 fee (per child) will be charged for the educational materials (pocket guide, games, stickers) provided as part of the activities. This will have to be done at the time of registration. Adults accompanying the child need not pay the fee.

Here are the details of the previous sessions.

Move ‘n’ Groove with Birds at Sultanpur National Park, NCR
22 January 2023
This walk was hosted in NCR as opposed to our usual location, Bangalore. The walk happened on a foggy day with almost no visibility. We started with an energiser called “Act like a …” where we acted like different organisms in the natural world. We then talked about the different kinds of behaviours birds exhibit and went on a bird walk that focussed on not the names but the movements of birds. This was followed by the ‘All in a Bird’s Life’ game. We concluded the walk with a reflection circle where everyone shared something new that they learned during the session.
 
 
A Morning with Birds at Cubbon Park
4 December 2022
Under the shade of a huge fig tree, we began this session with a Fact or Fiction game and uncovered cool facts about birds. This was followed by a Bird Bingo game to make the participants familiar with the surroundings. We then did an exploration of the habitat where each participant picked one bird and observed it for 15 minutes. They noted down its behaviour, how it looked and what it sounded like. The session was concluded with a game called ‘All in a Bird’s Life’ where we talked about the different challenges birds face on a daily basis.  
 
Games Galore at Courtyard Koota
27 November 2022
This session was full of fun games about birds to help kids understand bird behaviour and habitats. We started off with a movement activity where the kids acted like different things they see in nature. This was followed by the Fact or Fiction game and a bird walk where kids focussed on what birds were doing instead of just finding their names. We also played a Memory Game with our flashcards, and concluded the session with a sharing circle. 
 
Birdy Conversations at Cubbon Park
25 September 2022
In this walk, the participants opened their eyes and ears to observe Cubbon Park as a bird habitat. We first trained our ears to listen to different sounds in the milieu using a sound map activity. Then we moved on to learning about a bird’s relationship with its habitat, and discovered the different components of a habitat that a bird uses to thrive.
 
Habitat Huntdown at Yelahanka Lake
27 August 2022
We kicked off with understanding what a habitat is and capturing the lay of the land in a map. We talked about all the living things that the Yelahanka Lake habitat might support and what they need to survive. Zooming in and across the landscape using a spotting scope and binoculars, we were on a mission to find as many microhabitats as we could.
 
Birdwalk at Dodabommasandra Lake
24 July 2022
We kick started the walk with our Bird Detectives Bingo, and then watched the water birds at the lake. The participants searched for bird names using our pocket guides along with noticing all the quirky behaivours the birds displayed.
 
Here are some snippets from the sessions…

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