Guest speaker visits Bird and Wildlife Club
Photo courtesy of Dennis Brack, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science
Atwood lectures at the 2013 High School National Science Bowl. During his visit to Bird and Wildlife Club, Atwood discussed many local bird species, as well as their calls and identifications. “It was refreshing to learn new things I hadn’t heard about before,” sophomore Patrick Gaucher said.
November 21, 2020
Fred Atwood, an expert birdwatcher and founder of Northern Virginia Teen Bird Club (NVTBC), spoke at Jefferson’s Bird and Wildlife Club on Friday, Nov. 21, during 8B. Bird and Wildlife Club began holding meetings last February in hopes of inspiring students to interact more with nature.
“There actually was a bird club at TJ several years ago,” junior and club president Ananda Kalukin said. “When I found out I thought it’d be great if someone restarted that so I decided that I would and try to get people at TJ more acquainted with nature.”
Since then, the club has influenced students to learn about birds and other types of wildlife.
“I was invited to the first meeting of the club because I knew the founder,” sophomore Patrick Gaucher said. “However, I soon realized that Bird and Wildlife club is a great place to take a break from stressing over school and enjoy learning about wildlife.”
Mr. Atwood went over different species of birds and talked about their characteristics during Friday’s club meeting.
“He taught a lot about bird habitat and identification, including which ones are endangered, which I thought was very important to know about,” junior Rolina Qu said.
Kalukin thought that Mr. Atwood’s approach to bird watching was the most important takeaway from the lecture.
“He was talking about these huge flocks of geese and even ordinary birds like mourning doves and some of the really fascinating characteristics that they have,” Kalukin said. “The point [was] that even in the most mundane things in nature that you see every day, you can find something incredible if you look.”
