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Birders make a big impact on Brevard County during the Annual Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival

Posted by David McRee at BlogTheBeach.com

The 13th Annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival was my first birding festival. I attended the full week and my daily schedule was packed with classes, field trips, keynote presentations, and daily visits to the exhibit room to meet vendors and meet birders. The whole experience exceeded my expectations.

The field trips I took varied from learning about gulls at the Brevard Landfill from Alvaro Jaramillo to getting a lesson on birding by impression from Pete Dunne while stomping around the fresh water marshes, to listening to bird calls in the early dawn hours with Paddy Cunningham. The experts really impressed upon me the importance of not relying solely on field marks that are typically provided in birding field guides.

Birding expert Pete Dunne points out a Sedge wren in the high brown grasses during a trip to Canaveral Marshes.

To advance your bird identification abilities you have to know what kind of birds to expect in the habitats you are in.  You should be able to narrow down what kind of bird you are seeing by its size, shape, and behavior and you need to develop the skills to identify a bird by hearing its various calls. Those abilities are what set the experts apart from the rest of us, and there is absolutely no substitute for standing next to Pete Dunne, Alvaro Jaramillo, Paddy Cunningham, Kenn Kaufman or any of the experts and watching them identify a bird. It is nothing short of amazing and will inspire you greatly to improve your skills.

The classes really made me aware of two things: (1) how much variation there is between birds of the same species, and (2) how much consistency there is between birds of the same species. It’s easy to get hung up on trying to count the number of spots on a bird’s tail and match that to a field guide, rather than using common sense to identify the bird.

An early morning classroom workshop on gulls with Alvaro Jaramillo. Classes at the Space Coast Birding Festival were held on the campus of Brevard Community College in Titusville.

During one of the bird identification discussions, a photo was shown of what appeared to be a female duck that didn’t have the necessary field marks for experts to come to a conclusion about its exact species. Some suggested it was a Mexican duck; others said it was most likely a Mottled duck. Its various attributes were discussed–bill color, leg color, shape, color patterns, etc. Then the photographer noted that it had a mate. Just when I was tiring of the discussion, Pete Dunne chimed in and asked if the duck’s mate had been identified. Yes, he was told, the mate was definitely a Mottled duck. “Well then,” Dunne quipped, “I’m quite confident that a male Mottled duck is able to discern a female Mottled duck better than we are, so I’d call it a Mottled duck and be done with it.”

The Space Coast Birding Festival exhibit center was the place to compare and choose a new field guide.

Keynote presentations were excellent and well attended. Alvaro Jaramillo really opened up my eyes to the increasing range of many gull species. They are powerful fliers and are very adaptable to changing environments. We are starting to see European and Asian gulls in North America where they would not normally be expected.

Reinier Munguia, a photographer and nature educator, inspired us all with his mission to help other people, especially children, appreciate the beauty and value of our natural world through his photography and hands-on education efforts.

David Allen Sibley, author of the famous Sibley Field Guides to Birds,  spoke of his new work, The Sibley Guide to Trees, and how the idea was born, how he approached his subject (with the usual Sibley thoroughness, of course), and how he overcame obstacles to producing such a fine field guide by combining the artistic and scientific aspects of species identification. We all chuckled when Sibley quoted a friend who once said “There’s a fine line between birding, and standing around like an idiot.”

Finally Kenn Kaufman gave a thought-provoking and entertaining keynote that made everyone feel more connected as birders, and we all left thinking that perhaps we should more proudly display our interest in birds.

Kenn Kaufman gives an entertaining keynote presentation on Pride in the Name of Birding.

[Note: Louise Zemaitis also gave a keynote, but circumstances conspired against me and I missed it, regrettably.]

Most classes were held at the Brevard Community College Campus, while the field trips were scattered far and wide around Brevard County–some at the beach, some in the woods, and others in open marshes or around lakes. Many of the field trips started early–as in 5 or 6 a.m., and some lasted for an entire day. That’s a lot of birding!

But these trips into the field aren’t  just a matter of a group of birders wandering about in unfamiliar woods. The guides know exactly where to take you to see the birds. There are no guarantees, of course, but preparation and opportunity are often met with success in birding, as in life.

A field trip through the South Lake Conservation Area in search of Florida Scrub Jays during the 13th Annual Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival.

I was often so busy that I skipped meals, but I still had plenty to eat: IHOP for breakfast, Dixie Crossroads, Heavenly Barbeque or the Village Inn for lunch or dinner, and sometimes I grabbed a quick sandwich from Hot Stuff Catering at the snack bar just outside the exhibit center Brevard Community College.

While all of the classes and field trips are going on, the exhibit center in the college’s Gymnatorium houses the official registration desk and all the vendors and exhibitors. Photographers, non-profit conservation organizations, tour guides, optics vendors, sellers of nature guides and more fill the large center. It’s a great place for mixing and mingling with other birders while the sounds of hawks and eagles calling (often very loudly) provide real birding ambiance from the exhibit center’s stage, which featured the Raptor Project’s birds of prey–a runaway hit with all the attendees.

What will I do differently next time? I’ll allow more time to mingle with the vendors, exibitors and attendees in the exhibition center, and I’ll make time to see the Raptor Project’s show.

Did you attend the Festival? What was your experience?

To see what other people think about the Festival, why not become a fan of the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife  Festival Facebook Page?

FTC Disclosure of Material Connections: I receive compensation from the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival for writing about the 2010 Festival. I also receive a great deal of personal satisfaction from writing about this wonderful event.

Tagged as: space coast birding and wildlife festival

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Alpen Optics binoculars on display at the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival.

If you are entertaining the idea of buying a new pair of binoculars or a spotting scope, the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival is definitely one of your best opportunities to do so. The advantage to attending the Festival is that you can try out the entire line of binoculars, spotting scopes and all the accessories, and ask questions of the sales staff of all the vendors. Some of the optics  vendors represented at the 2010 Festival were:

• Swarovski
• Eagle Optics
• Alpen Optics
• Kowa
• Nikon
• Leica Sports Optics

By the end of the Festival I realized that the cheapo Walmart binoculars I was pretending to use were holding me back. Other birders were easily finding birds in the treetops and seeing yellow rumps, white wing bars, white eye rings and other subtleties that my binoculars just could not bring out. Unfortunately my schedule was so tight that I was unable to try out the wares of each vendor. But I managed to attract the attention of Tony Proper, VP of Alpen Optics who helped me pick out just the right pair of binoculars. And he didn’t seem a bit disappointed that I wasn’t going to spend $500.

R to L, Captain Ben Evans of Wildside Tours stopped by the Alpen Optics booth to chat with Tom Hallett and Tony Proper of Alpen as I was leaving with my new purchase.

I actually did try out some of Alpen’s higher priced binoculars, but couldn’t see a big difference–possibly because my eyes are not yet trained to look through binoculars. So I settled on a pair of 8X42 Shasta Ridge waterproof binoculars. Final price was about $150. Several birders told me that when you get up into the really high price range binoculars there is a big difference in clarity and brightness.

My new Alpen binoculars, purchased at the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival.

Shortly after returning from the Festival I tried out my new glass at Fort Desoto Park in St. Petersburg, FL. I had a great morning watching Yellow-rumped warblers, a Yellow-throated warbler, a Blue-gray gnatcatcher, and several Palm warblers flitting about in the oaks and Australian pines, and some Northern Gannets diving in Tampa Bay in the Egmont Channel. The new binoculars were a joy to use, even while wearing my glasses.

No matter what kind of optics you are interested in, the vendors at the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival have you covered.

A good pair of binoculars is so important to a birder that after a while they seem like a natural extension of the hand.

Looking for a good pair of birding binoculars? Numerous top brands are represented at the Festival, including these Eagle Optics and Swarovski binoculars. This is the place to actually give them all a try before buying.

I learned a lot about binoculars at the Festival. One of the main things I learned was that an 8 power binocular is just about perfect. I used to think that the higher the power, the better. Problem is that once you get above 8 power, it’s a lot harder to keep the image steady without using a tripod. Binoculars have really improved over the years and the clarity and brightness you get with today’s binoculars is amazing. So if you are using an old pair you’ve had around since the 1970’s, it’s time for a new pair!

FTC Disclosure of Material Connections: I receive compensation from the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival for writing about the 2010 Festival. I also receive a great deal of personal satisfaction from writing about this wonderful event.

Tagged as: space coast birding and wildlife festival

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