Talking about birds
Red Capped Robin
Last night I was guest speaker at a local church fellowship group. I chose as my topic “Lessons from the birds”, drawing examples from the behaviour and habits of our Australian birds which illustrate principles mentioned in the Bible. I used some of the photos shown here on this site over recent years. The photo above was one of them and was much admired by those present.
This presentation made something of a departure from my normal illustrated talks about Australian birds where I only talk about the habits and distribution of the birds I choose to include in the photos. I’m very comfortable with either approach. I have yet another method when I talk to the local bird club. Being aviculturists I tend to talk only about those birds commonly kept in captivity. In tailoring my talks to the intended audience, I find that people are far more attentive.
This most recent talk was for a local organisation, one of the churches in our city. I am prepared to travel and present talks about our beautiful birds and only ask that my travelling costs be covered.
Last night gave me the opportunity to use my new data projector for the first time too.
Good birding.
Talking about birds
A few minutes ago I arrived home after visiting one of our local Residential Aged Care homes. Our ladies’ fellowship group at church had arranged to hold one of their meetings in a small meeting room in the home. I was the guest speaker for the meeting.
I was asked to speak about birds and show some of my photographs of the birds of this area using a PowerPoint presentation. I was asked to keep the talk to about thirty minutes and this was to keep their attention. The old folk tend to drift into the Land of Noddy after that. With my considerable collection of photos and my tendency to rave on a little about my favourite hobby, restricting me to thirty minutes was a challenge. (Or perhaps the organiser knows me too well!)
Anyway, I managed to cull the presentation down to thirty photographs and I mentally gave myself one minute to talk about each photo. Mission accomplished: I only went over by about five minutes. In fact, it took longer to get all the old folk to the room in their wheel chairs and walking frames than it took to give the presentation.
Many of the folk thought the presentation was great with much praise for the photos. And I only heard heavy breathing coming from one person, despite the very warm room. It was a pleasing experience.
Below is one of the photos I showed this afternoon.
Updated Nov 2013.
Mallee Ringneck Parrot