Alvaro Jaramillo is Senior Biologist at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. A trip leader for the bird tour company Field Guides, he recently started a tour company of his own, Alvaro’s Adventures, specializing in California pelagic birding and field trips in Central and South America. Born in Chile, he grew up in Canada and did graduate work at the University of Toronto under James D. Rising, with whom he wrote the section on the Emberizid family of passerines for volume 4 of Handbook of Birds of the World (forthcoming). He has also contributed chapters to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior and the National Geographic field guides and has written the books New World Blackbirds: The Icterids and Birds of Chile, the standard field guide. A member of the AOU’s South American Classification Committee, Jaramillo is a sought-after keynote speaker at birding festivals, a columnist for Bird Watcher’s Digest, and an associate editor of North American Birds. In 2011, the Linnaean Society awarded him its highest honor, the Eisenmann Medal, given for excellence in ornithology and encouragement of the amateur. Jaramillo writes of his talk, “Are the brains of seasoned birders different from the brains of beginners? Is there some magic that the experts do when they see only a glimpse? The truth is that it is not magic at all, and likely anyone can do it if they work at it. This talk is partly about what we understand about brain function and how it allows us to identify birds. With this understanding, we get all the keys that can help you be more proficient at bird identification. This promises to be a lively and entertaining look at birder brains and how we relate to birds. I hope my talk will open a new perspective and reinvigorate birding for you.”
