Please be sure to check the event organizer’s website for any last-minute changes or cancellations prior to attending.
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Mindful Birding
Mindful birding combines observing birds with mindfulness techniques, creating a practice that incorporates heightened awareness. Labeling or identifying birds is not the primary focus. Instead, the intention is to slow down and notice the world around us, using birds as our guides. During this guided experience, you’ll practice simple mindfulness exercises to engage sensory awareness while intentionally tuning into the birds surrounding you.
Techniques and prompts accompany this gently guided walk and/or “sit spot” experience, which strive to enhance our observation skills, promoting a deepening of our experiences with birds around us. This in turn amplifies the multitude of benefits birds provide to our overall wellbeing. Participants will also be provided “Ornitherapy Journals” and select prompts to increase observation and awareness and provide a takeaway from the experience.
No prior experience with birds or mindfulness practice are necessary to attend.
The benefits of mindful birding:
- Enjoy a reprieve from life stressors and pressures.
- Stimulate and promote a more positive overall wellbeing, mind and body.
- Gain enhanced sensory awareness (sight, sound, smell, touch).
- Better understand birdlife through intentional observation.
- Enhance observation skills, in turn building a stronger foundation for overall bird identification.
- Increase self-reflection through birds and the natural world.
about the instructor
Holly Merker has a background in art therapy but, today, connects nature and birds to achieve the same result of mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing through her work in nature-based wellness practices. As an award-winning author, mindful birding leader, wellness counselor, mindfulness mentor, podcaster, certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide (ANFT), and Forest Therapy Practitioner (FT Hub), Holly offers gently guided experiences that incorporate accessibility and for all skill levels, which are designed to be welcoming and inclusive to all people. Learn more here.
