Meet your Master Naturalist Instructor… Cedar Mathers-Winn

Since he was a kid crashing around after lizards in California, Cedar has tried to spend as much time as possible outside. In his attempts to meet this goal, he has found himself occupied in all manner of strange jobs and places: recording tiny Fairywrens in tropical Australia; climbing palm trees in the Dominican Republic; chasing woodpeckers through the burnt forests of the Sierra Nevada; even recording traditional music on a field expedition to Bhutan! Wherever he finds himself, Cedar employs the inquisitive mind and sharp senses of a naturalist, studying each ecosystem and its inhabitants with dedication and no small degree of joy. In 2018, he turned his focus to earning his Master’s degree at the University of Montana, studying communication and ecology of mixed-species flocks of birds. This work produced some astonishing insights into the abilities of forest songbirds to communicate about their predators.  

Cedar has always been passionate about sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm for nature with anyone who would listen, and relishes opportunities to do this through teaching. He has taught undergraduates, professional scientists, and the public in a great variety of topics in biology and natural history – both indoors and outdoors. When not teaching or working as a bioacoustical scientist, Cedar enjoys writing, making music, foraging for fungi, and learning as much as he can from simply being in nature.