Join Matthew Young, President and Founder of the Finch Research Network and co-author of The Stokes Guide to Finches of the United States and Canada, in a guided walk centered around waterfowl that visit both the GSC and the Erie Canal.
The GSC is located within the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor and features many of the same bird species that can be seen on the Erie Canal due to the abundance of wetlands.
Bring your own binoculars or borrow some from the GSC!
Wear rain/muck boots!
Free for the public!
Registration is preferred but not necessary!
Bio on Matt Young:
Matt has been observing and enjoying nature since a very young age. He’s lived in Central New York for 27+ years and it was during this time when he really started studying everything from birds to orchids, and bogs and fens. Matt received his B.S. in Water Resources with a minor in Meteorology from SUNY-Oneonta and his M.S. in Ornithology from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry/Syracuse University in 2003. Matt did his masters research on avian diversity in restored wetlands of central New York at the Great Swamp Conservancy. He was a Regional Editor of the Kingbird for 10 years, the state ornithological journal in New York, was an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Studies at SUNY-Cortland, and currently teaches an Intro to Birding class for Cornell University and is a Conservation Ecologist for The Wetland Trust. He owns Young Environmental Collaboratives/Mindful Nature Expeditions, also currently guides for Sunrise Birding and Wildlife Tours, and works for the bird products industry as a Wildbird Products Specialist and Naturalist for Aspen Song Wild Bird Feed and a Global Consultant for Netvue-Birdfy birdwatching products.
Over the last 27 years he’s worked as a social worker with special needs young adults and adolescents for close to 13 years, and worked at the Cornell Lab 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. He was the Collections Management Leader/Audio Engineer at the Macaulay Library ~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’s 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 including describing a new call type Type 12. He is the co-author on The Finches of United States and Canada with Lillian Stokes and is also the President and Founder of the Finch Research Network (FiRN).