Nature in Plain Sight
An interview with Instructor Cedar Mathers-Winn
By Christy Howard
In the heart of Montana, where the vast sky meets the rugged mountains, Cedar Mathers-Winn found his calling amidst the wilds of nature. His journey to becoming an instructor at the non profit Montana Outdoor Science School is a testament to the unexpected turns life can take and the profound impact of following one’s passion.
His journey began in high school, where he felt alienated by the traditional science curriculum that focused on cells, organs, and physics. “I remember at one point I was like, I don’t think I actually like science,” he says. “Science meant invisible biology, things that I couldn't see in the field. And then physics, which was really hard for me because I didn’t understand math very well, was just as hard.”
Instead, he pursued his other obsession: music. He enrolled in a music program where he learned about sound from a broader perspective. “I was like, OK, this can be broader than just music. I can study sound,” he says. “It was super fun. I learned a ton. It was a really good experience.”
After graduating, he landed an internship at Folkways, Smithsonian’s ethnographic label, where he digitized old reel-to-reel tapes of folk music from all over the world. “That was really cool, but it was an unpaid internship in Washington DC, so that was hard,” he says. He then went on to work as an assistant on a recording project in Bhutan, where he helped document the songs and dances of master musicians from the court of the third king, who was a patron of the arts. “It was very cool. We traveled around to do videography of them in different cool places,” he says.
However, he soon realized that finding a stable job in the field of ethnomusicology was not easy. “I was trying to find archival stuff, and there were a few out there, but I was waiting so long for these jobs to be posted. I was like, I can’t just hang out,” he says. He decided to look for other opportunities that involved sound and nature, and that’s when he stumbled upon the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP), a nonprofit organization that conducts research on bird ecology and conservation.
“I had gotten into birds in college, and I had a friend who had a friend who had talked about this nonprofit,” he says. He applied for a position as a field technician and got hired. He then spent many an early morning doing bird counts, listening to every bird he could identify. This led him to Australia where he worked with his future wife who hired him onto a crew to do field recordings of birds. Armed with sophisticated equipment from Cornell, they ventured out in the dark to capture the intricate sounds of singing birds. "We would go out in the morning and record birds finding an individual in the morass of all these singing birds. And we did this in the dark. Really cool, really fun.”
This introduced him into the interconnection between sound and biology. He took a recording rig with him, wherever he went recording natural sounds of which many are in the Maccaulay Library. “I have a lot of stuff on there, lots of birds and frogs. Australia was great for frogs.”
He was also especially intrigued by the alarm calls that birds made and studying communication. Cedar had caught the bioacoustic bug.
Grad School at the University of Montana led him to studying chickadees —a bird he affectionately considers the most captivating in the world. His enthusiasm shines through as he reminisces about his studies, emphasizing the remarkable nature of these feathered creatures. “They are really amazing.”
Cedar and his wife and made their way to Bozeman after his master’s degree, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. As fate would have it, an opportunity arose when an instructor scheduled to teach a master naturalist course had to leave for Mexico. Cedar was familiar with the Montana National History Center in Missoula, having taken the master naturalist course with Christine Morris. Yet, he doubted his qualifications to teach. It was Jenny’s encouragement and Christine’s affirmation of his abilities that propelled him to reach out to the Montana Outdoor Science School (MOSS). “And that was kind of when I found my calling for teaching.”
Cedar’s motivation stems from a deep-seated desire to connect people with nature, to help them see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to ignite a sense of wonder and curiosity. A coworker says that, “My superpower is noticing little things that people walk by.” He smiles. “There is so much right in front of you. Nature in plain sight. If you look hard enough and care enough to ask questions, you will learn something. Every time. No matter where you are.”
Through his work, Cedar Mathers-Winn inspires a sense of belonging to the natural world, encouraging his students to listen to the stories told by the birds and the wind, and to recognize the abundance of life that surrounds us. His message is clear: nature in plain sight is a gateway to never-ending discovery and a reminder that we are all part of something much larger than ourselves. “You start to feel more connected. You start to feel more a part of your environment. You start to see your impact. You start seeing how small things are so important.”
His story is a reminder that sometimes, the most profound lessons come from the simplest observations, and that by embracing our natural curiosity, we can uncover the wonders that lie just beneath the surface of our everyday lives. “There is always stuff to learn. You can never be bored.”
If you are interested in becoming a Certified Master Naturalist, the Spring Master Naturalist session begins March 19th, 2024 and runs through May 16th 2024.
For more information go to https://www.outdoorscience.org/naturalist. You can also contact me at choward@outdoorscience.org or call (406) 219-3899
Christy Howard is a Certified Master Naturalist and the Office Coordinator at Montana Outdoor Science School.
