Spring Birding Festivals 2013!

I love traveling, especially if I know where I'm going.

I had a momentary lost of cranial pressure a few minutes ago. I was sitting in an airport terminal, waiting on a plane, and I suddenly realized that I could not recall where I was about to go. I checked the gate screen and saw it was a flight to Detroit. No bells were rung by this. Then I walked my mental fingers through my recent travels. I'd been twice to Florida in the past two weeks, so not likely going there again. And then it came to me. I was not going to a birding festival, but to a business conference for publishers: more work-like and completely indoors. No chance to go birding. No wonder I'd forgotten it.

I can look forward to much great birding travel and adventure this spring and summer, however. Let me share some of the highlights with you.

In just a few weeks I'll be one of the speakers at the San Diego Bird Festival. This event takes place on scenic Mission Bay from February 28 to March 3, 2013. The featured speaker is Dr. John Fitzpatrick from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I am listed as a special guest and I'm leading a birding trip along the border with Mexico as well as giving a couple of presentations and playing some music for one of the evening receptions. 

The San Diego Bird Festival features many activities for young people and families.

The birding at this fest is excellent (including several pelagic trips), as is the vendor hall. There's even a post-festival tour south into the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. Find out more here: www.sandiegoaudubon.org.

Vermilion flycatcher (male). Photo ©Karen Straus

Later in March I'll be representing Bird Watcher's Digest as a host for the first-ever Birding Optics & Gear Expo in Columbus, Ohio March 23-24, 2013. Nearly all the major optics manufacturers will be on hand, showing and sharing their products. Ben Lizdas from Eagle Optics will be there selling optics. And we'll be joined by several other companies, too: Midwest Photo Exchange will be selling cameras and other photo gear, Clintonville Outfitters will bring outdoor gear such as boots, packs, and so on. Manfrotto will be there with their excellent tripods. Optics companies at the Expo include: Swarovski Optik, Leica Sport Optics, Carl Zeiss Sports Optics, Celestron, Kowa Optimed, Minox, Vanguard, and Vortex. Best of all, this event is FREE to attend. All outdoor enthusiasts are welcome, so I hope to see you there.

One spring event that I've been invited to in the past but have never been able to attend is the FeatherFest in Galveston, Texas scheduled for April 11-14, 2013. It might win the contest for longest birding festival name, since it's officially known as: The FeatherFest Birding and Nature Photography Festival. I've been birding along this part of the Texas coast and can attest to its appeal as a place where you get great, close-up looks at wonderful birds. Easy access to diverse habitats means you'll likely run up a huge list of birds. This year's speaker is Mark Obmascik, author of The Big Year. More details are available here: Galveston FeatherFest. One of these years I plan to get back to Galveston (cue the Glenn Campbell soundtrack).

In late April I'll be back down in south-central West Virginia at the New River Birding & Nature Festival, which is held in Fayetteville, WV from April 29 to May 5. This small event specializes in wood warblers, including cerulean, Swainson's, and golden-winged—and about 20 other warbler species, too. Mornings are spent birding the hills and hollers amid breathtaking mountain scenery of the New River Gorge. Late afternoons are a time to rest up for the evening, which might include a cookout, a cafe meal, or a stop at a nearby ramp dinner before the evening program and check list review. 

Life bird wigglers after finding a golden-winged warbler at the New River Birding & Nature Festival in West Virginia.

It's fun, friendly, a little wacky, and a must-add event to your bird-festival bucket list. On the festival's final night, The Rain Crows, the most-famous band ever to emerge from Whipple, Ohio will be playing a show at Opossum Creek Retreat, where the festival is based. Oh yes, and there is local microbrewed beer on hand, too. More info: New River Birding & Nature Festival.

At the end of April I'll be speaking and guiding for the first time at The Acadia Birding Festival on Mount Desert Island in Maine, which runs from May 30 to June 2. I'm giving two talks and guiding on two walks and a pelagic trip for the festival. Marshall Iliff is the other speaker booked this year for Acadia—a festival which is gaining quite a reputation for its combination of great boreal and coastal birding. Who doesn't like a birding event that can give you both warblers and alcids? For more info, head here: www.acadiabirdingfestival.com

Mid-June usually find me and my family out on the Missouri Coteau in North Dakota for the Prairie and Potholes Birding Festival. If you've been a reader of my blog or Julie Zickefoose's blog over the years, or a subscriber to Bird Watcher's Digest you'll know about "Potholes." Our dear friend Ann Hoffert serves as the de facto den mother for this festival which, despite its small size (about 80 people max), offers world-class birding. Highlight species we see most every year include Baird's, LeConte's, and Nelson's sparrows, chestnut-collared longspur, Sprague's pipit, and ferruginous hawk. 

Birders at the Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival looking for a Sprague's pipit.

Add to that alluring list the vision of nearly every breeding species of waterfowl, skeins of American white pelicans, and you get a feel for the wonderful birds we see. But there's more: hot lunches at cafes in tiny prairie towns, a prairie ramble that includes sites where Native American tepee rings are still present, and the biggest sky you've ever seen. There are even rumors that there will be a bit of squatchin' this year with Al Batt and Liam Thompson. We've been out there for 10 years running and we'll be back again: Visit Birding Drives Dakota for details.

Late June will find my family back at the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Bremen, Maine for a course we'll be helping to teach called "The Arts of Birding." Julie and I and our fellow instructors (including...) will lead sessions on nature journaling, field sketching and painting, writing about birds, bird photography, and perhaps even a bit of nature songwriting, too. Hog Island is legendary for its setting along the rocky Maine coast, its proximity to birds such as black guillemot and Atlantic puffin, and its history of teaching people of all ages about nature. We hope you'll join us June 23 to 28, 2013 for The Arts of Birding.

A sunset view of Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine.

It's time to board my plane to....ummm.....uhhhh......HOME! Yay! What a long strange trip it's been! Hey, I hope to see you out there with the birds one of these days at one of the events I've listed above. Until then, stay birdy, people!

Phoebe's Special Birding Adventure

 

 During our recent family sojourn in South Texas as part of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, I was really happy to see daughter Phoebe (age 16) finally really get into bird watching. And because Phoebe was into it, her younger brother Liam (just turned 13) also got into it, though at a somewhat lower intensity level.

Both kids had exceptional birding moments during our six days in Texas, but it's Phoebe's experience that I'll relate here. Liam's we'll share another day.

Julie and I'd been working during the festival as guides and speakers and the kids came along where space was available. They went along on one of Julie's trips and helped me with the large group of young birders on Saturday morning. Then on Sunday we all got to be together on a Breakfast with the Birds trip to a local private ranch called Rio Costero. Al Batt was one of the other guides and he and Liam kept up a constant banter about going "squatchin'." (This means they were going hunting in the South Texas scrub for sasquatch.)

Birding a resaca at Rio Costero.

The ranch was amazing, the birding was engaging, and the breakfast was so good that we all ate too much. After taking the group bus back to Harlingen, our family hopped in the rental car and headed for South Padre Island. We'd promised the kids an afternoon at the beach—they'd never seen the Gulf of Mexico. Well, actually Phoebe had, as a three-year old, but that doesn't really count.

 Being at the beach was really fun. We frolicked in the surf despite a fairly strong undertow. We body-surfed and splashed and ran. The kids asked us to take photos of them leaping with joy.

It was hard to leave the beach, but time was winding down and there was another place, across the street from the beach access, that I wanted to visit: the boardwalk adjacent to the South Padre Island Convention Center. This boardwalk and the natural and human-enhanced habitat around it is a famous birding hotspot. In early spring the birding action is in the small trees between the start of the boardwalk and the convention center. I once did a Big Sit here during the Texas Birding Classic and it was crazy birdy. This being November, the best birding was out in the marsh through which the boardwalk winds.

 Immediately we began seeing and calling out bird after bird: northern pintail, green-winged and blue-winged teal, shovelers, Forster's and royal terns, tricolored heron, little blue heron, roseate spoonbill, American avocet, black-necked stilts. I was pleased at how many of these species Phoebe knew on her own. Liam was riffing on the birds' names—as newly minted teenaged boys are apt to do—and cracking himself up in the process.

Moments before Phoebe's great bird sighting.

We ran into a small flock of familiar Ohio birders who had found an American bittern, which they were kind enough to share with us. Phoebe really like this one and we began telling her some of the natural history of the species. She even recalled seeing them before on our annual trip to North Dakota.

American bittern.

 Twenty or so minutes later, as we were turning around to head back to the car, Phoebe stopped, raised her binocs and pointed, saying "What's THAT bird? Is it another bittern? It looks smaller."
Umm. YES Phoebe, that's a least bittern!

Phoebe's least bittern!

WOW! A two-bittern day! We watched the least bittern fishing for about 40 minutes. We took photos and video. And we reached our Ohio birdpals by cellphone and returned their earlier bittern favor.

Watching the least bittern.

 I can't accurately convey how happy and proud these few moments made me. We've never pushed our kids to get into birding. Sure, we've have forced them out of bed in the wee hours regularly in their lifetimes just to bring them along with us on birding trips. And we've thrust expensive optical instruments into their tiny hands and implored them to get a good look at some fabulous bird or other. But we've never forced them to become bird watchers. Now it seems the metamorphosis is happening naturally. [Which was ALL part of our evil plan from the beginning!]

Phoebe keeping the trip bird list on our Breakfast with the Birds field trip.

Phoebe is already there. It might take Liam a bit longer. It would help if we could just get one good look at a sasquatch. Now THAT would be a lifer!

Happy Birthday Liam!

With today's activities and festivities, Liam has celebrated his birthday in Texas three times. Today my blond-haired boy turns 13. We're celebrating with some morning birding, then an afternoon time-out while I give a talk at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, then some shopping for some new threads for the birthday dude, then a dinner out somewhere fun. I keep teasing Liam that we're taking him across the Mexican border for a b-day party Carlos E Queso's, which is just like Chuck E Cheese's, but more picante!

He's not buying it!

We call him many names: Po, Shoom, Broski...he puts up with all of them.

 

 No brother ever adored a big sister more than he adores Phoebe.

 He LOVES the costume fun of Halloween, his favorite holiday.

He is an expert at taking funny photos.

 

We never want him to grow up and leave home, but we know that day will come. And all too soon.

 Happy birthday, my sweet son. Thank you for coming into my life. I love you.