Birds 101

Wake Forest students head to Florida to find birds

By Wake Forest University

March 20^th, 2020

"If I'm being honest,
it was pretty cool"

Wake Forest biology professor Dave Anderson has been taking a beginning birding class to Florida for Spring Break since 1996. Our student photographer, Riley Herriman (’22), the student photographer for Wake Forest's Communications & External Relations, took the class this year and made photographs along the way. Here are their stories.

The Professor: Dr. Dave Anderson

"The class (BIO 255, Bird Taxonomy) is an immersion experience in bird identification and natural history, and we sneak in a lot of information about the environmental setting in which the birds live, both the original habitat and the drastically altered south Florida habitat that they now find themselves in.

"We motor around the south end of the state to hotspots that I've used over the years, trying to accumulate sightings of as many species as we can (and beat the record for this class, which currently stands at 136). Generally the students start at ground zero. They could confidently identify maybe five species, and that's including the bald eagles that everyone knows. They have not used a binocular before. They ascend the learning curve rapidly, seeing 50 or so species on our first day, at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

"On the second day, from an airboat on Lake Kissimmee, they are working on muscle memory, identifying many repeat species from day 1 without using the field guide. On the third day we take on difficult small forest birds at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. By this time they have the lingo down: "LBB" for unknown little brown bird, "RBG" for the very common ring-billed gull, "BRPE" pronounced burpy, for brown pelican. They have a field exam at the end of the first day and almost always make me proud by getting A grades across the board.

"The final exam when we are back on campus is difficult, sight identification of pictures of 100 of the species that we saw, from memory, and again they usually show that they can do virtually all of them. Five to 100 (at least) in just a week!"

More from Dr. Anderson...

“My principal learning goal for the course is to give them tools and confidence in the identification process, knowing how to do process of elimination to make a subset of candidates, then go to the field guide to choose a winner. If they hold IDs in their head for the future that's great, but the main goal is understanding how the identification process works so that they can apply it themselves. Even proficient biologists use their field guide all the time.

"A secondary goal is to understand how the suppression of fire and diversion of water from wetlands like the Everglades has changed the lives of birds, and sizes of their populations, so dramatically in the past 70 years.

"I drive the bus 1,900 miles during the trip, so at the end I am ready to quit birding for a day or two! That is always mixed with satisfaction that the students have had an intensive outdoor intellectual experience, most of five days talking about and experiencing bird identification, ecology, and evolution.

"Our department tries hard to connect students with organisms in their natural habitats, both to master course content and to break the increasing tendency for post-Millennials to have little acquaintance with actual nature.”

"Our department tries hard to connect students with organisms in their natural habitats..."

-- Dr. Dave Anderson, Wake Forest biology professor

The Student: Riley Herriman ('22)

“This here, ladies and gents, was our fearless leader Dr. Dave Anderson (above.) Rumored to have broken bones in the Galapagos, wrapped them up real quick, and kept on doing science. Some call this man a legend; we, as he insisted, called him ‘Dave’. Even while driving the full 8-hour trip from the Winston Hall parking lot to Florida, he would see a bird for just a moment and be able to identify it immediately.

"From day one, Dave believed in us. Even when a few of us self-pronounced 'non-birders' were initially intimidated by the idea of learning the names and behaviors of over 100 bird species in a matter of five days, Dave knew we’d get it. I think in reality he just knew from his experience teaching trips since 1996 that we would catch on. And we did."

More from Riley...

“Because of the time of year, hundreds of species of birds had flocked to Florida to make a living during the cooler months. Our trip itinerary consisted of going to some of the top birding places in North America. However, birds don’t know where the best birding places are; nobody gave them a map of Florida. We happened to see birds closest in gas station parking lots or on the ledge of a Publix. As an evolutionary biologist, Dave was especially excited to point out two ospreys mating above some parked cars in a strip mall. If I’m being honest, it was pretty cool."

More from Riley...

“One important aspect of this trip is that there was a competition embedded in our journey. Our cohort of 12 wanted to get more points than any of the previous years. We got three points for each new order, two points for a new family, and one point for a new species. The previous record was 276 points having seen 16 families, 46 orders, and 136 individual bird species. A tall order but we were vying to beat it.

“I felt we had an advantage though. While every previous year had Dave on their team just as we did, we had at least one year of extra Dave experience. You might think that his keen sense of birding is how this helped, but in reality it was his geographic knowledge of Central Florida. After a slightly underwhelming showing of new birds at the Audubon Society and with half the bus asleep, we came to a screeching halt right outside an elementary school of all places. Dave smirked.

"I examined the schoolyard, seeing no bird, but then heard someone scream “OH MY GOD! IS THAT AN OSTRICH!?” Unfortunately it was not an ostrich, but the 10-20 emus sitting across the street from the school got us an instant six points. Dave continued to smirk as we piled off the bus with our binocs."

More from Riley...

“This has certainly been the most atypical course I’ve ever taken. I’m used to the structure of a lecture and maybe a science lab to accompany it. BIO 255 is experiential learning. Similar to how they say learning a language is best done in the country where it is spoken, we were thrown into the field with almost no birding experience and became, as Dave called us, respectable birders.

"By forcing the classroom and the real world together, we ended up learning more. I learned that the tiniest details matter in distinguishing between two species of birds, that there’s an evolutionary explanation behind why male birds are more colorful, and that building canals to supply water to Miami affects all the Everglades wildlife. And even if I don’t pursue research into birds, BIO 255 taught me how to better practice deduction, analyze relationships, and realize nothing happens in isolation.

“On the ride back to Wake Forest we joked that Dave should teach BIO 256: Advanced Bird Taxonomy so that we can retake the course. I loved this trip, and I am so grateful to have been able to take it!

“Oh and yeah, I almost forgot: at the conclusion of our trip, we had seen 16 families, 44 orders, and 116 species for a grand total of 252 points. Unfortunately that did not set any records, but that’s what BIO 256 is for!”