Posted by Denise Deby. Thanks to Katherine Forster of the Ottawa Bird Count for sending along this information.
Katherine Forster alerted us to this opportunity to learn to recognize native bird songs:
Chirps, tweets and trills: Learn your local bird songs
Offered by the Ottawa Bird Count, a volunteer-based, scientifically rigorous survey of birds in an expanding city.
Free course open to all to learn about Ottawa’s native birds. By the end of the course, participants should be able to quickly recognize the songs of at least 70 common species that are encountered within the nation’s capital. Opportunities to volunteer with the organization after training is complete.
Space is limited – please sign up on Eventbrite.
When: 6 Saturday Mornings starting on April 5th from 8 am to 10 am
Where: Jack Purcell Community Centre, 320 Jack Purcell Lane off of Elgin Street
Katherine adds: “The course is free due to the generosity of our business supporters, the Awesome Ottawa fund and Adam Smith (OBC director) who is donating his time to teach the course. We are very grateful for all this support.”
According to the Ottawa Bird Count, a trained birder will hear around 8-10 times the number of bird species than can be seen, so learning bird songs is definitely useful, whether you’re an experienced birder, a new birder or an all-round outdoor enthusiast. Amazingly, there’s no charge for the course. Participants sign up to attend all six Saturdays, so will receive 12 hours of training.
To register, click on http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/chirps-tweets-and-trills-learn-your-local-bird-songs-tickets-10716396029.
To find out more about the Ottawa Bird Count and what they do, check out their website. Of course, you can follow them on Twitter: http://twitter.com/OttawaBirds
Green Living Ottawa 
Hi Denise!
Thanks again for sharing our news with your readers.
We saw your tweet – yes the course is now waitlisted – we`re thrilled with all the interest!
For now the Ottawa Bird Count will not be offering a second six-week training session this spring but if there are people who want to volunteer this summer and need a bit of a refresher on bird i.d. or need to know about field protocols, arrangements can be made. Anyone who is interested in volunteering can email ottawabirds (at) sympatico (dot) com for more info.
We will also use the waitlist as a way of notifying those interested in upcoming events where we might have an info table and/or lead a short walk (possibly Dundonald Park Spring into Fun and Nature Canada`s Bird Fair) or further training (possibly this fall) and to provide an advance notice for next spring`s course so that those who missed out on it this spring can get in early next year!
So if people want to be notified of upcoming events – email OBC or sign up on the waitlist through Eventbrite (in the link you provided in your post) or follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/OttawaBirds).
Have a great day – spring is in the air!