Baltimore Woods Nature Center is excited to Partner with Matt Young’s Mindful Nature Expeditions to offer a series of outdoor excursions to local birding sites in 2025!

This naturalist wellness class led by Matt Young will combine observing nature with mindfulness, creating a practice that incorporates a heightened sense of awareness, both in ourselves and the environment around us. Labeling or identifying species is not the only focus, but instead, the intention is also to slow down and notice how to use nature, including birds, butterflies, trees, flowers, and more as our guide. This style of observation invites reciprocity, sit-spots and self-reflection, journaling and exploration, and an acknowledgment of our physical and emotional responses while we engage with the outdoors.

Matt Young will lead three outings in the Central New York area:

• Saturday, February 8 – The Fantastic Finches (Southern Highlands or Boylston area): You’ll get a chance to experience the Fantastic Finches with Matt, author of the recently released Stokes Guide to Finches of the United States and Canada. Some of these finches are common backyard feeder birds like the American Goldfinch and House Finches, but some species are more boreal and mysterious irrupting south to our area only every so often — these are species like the crossbills, Pine Grosbeak, Purple Finch, Redpoll, Pine Siskin, and Evening Grosbeak. These social flocking birds have a lot to offer us, from their togetherness, to the joy they can bring to us.

• Saturday, March 1 – The Wonder of Waterfowl (Lake Ontario or Montezuma complex): Ah, the Wonder of Waterfowl — we hope to time the amazing migration at Montezuma or see the many species that congregate at Oswego Harbor….maybe we’ll even spy a Snowy Owl since they’ve irrupted south this year and have been seen locally. We will key into some of their courtship behaviors, which when paired can be a joy to witness….Waterfowl are some of the most majestic beautiful birds on the planet, from Snow Geese, to Redheads, to Long-tailed Ducks and more.

• Saturday, May 24 – The Wonderful Warblers (Bear Swamp or Chenango Co.): The Wonderful Warblers, the crowned jewels of the northeastern forest. People come from all over the world to see our warblers here in the Northeast. They are the Neotropical migrants coming to us from Central and South America to breed during May-August — they grace us for just a short time. We will listen to their voices, and read the landscape to learn the different habitats they use to raise their families. From the Blackburnian Warbler, to the Mourning Warbler, to Chestnut-sided Warbler, you won’t want to miss this!

Details:

• Cost:  $90 per participant for the full series, no discounts.
• Ages 18 and up

Cancellation Policy:

Program registration fees are non-refundable except in cases of family/medical emergencies. Baltimore Woods Nature Center may cancel a program due to weather, low enrollment, or changes in New York State guidelines for COVID-19. In the event of a cancellation, pre-registrants will be notified by email or phone and any pre-payments will be refunded.

About Matt Young

Matt has worked in the social work field with special needs adolescents for more than 10 years (currently as care manager supervisor), and worked at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology across 15+ years where he did extensive field work for the Lab’s Cerulean and Golden-winged Warblers atlas projects, and was project lead on the Lab’s first Finch Irruptive Bird Survey for Bird Source in 1999. Matt was the Collections Management Leader/Audio Engineer at the Macaulay Library for 12 years where he edited sounds for several Merlin packs around the world in addition to being the lead audio engineer on guides, The Songs of the Warblers of North America, Audubon Society Voices of Hawaii’s Birds, and the Cornell Lab’s Guides to Bird Sounds: the North America Master and Essential Sets.He has been a tour guide leader for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, written finch species accounts for breeding bird atlases and Birds of the World, and has published several papers about the Red Crossbill vocal complex and the Spiranthes orchid complex. He is currently working on Finches of North America with Lillian Stokes and is also the President and Founder of the Finch Research Network (FiRN), the Native Orchid Conservation Network (NOCN), and owner of Mindful Nature Expeditions.