The Exhibition Center at the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival will immerse you in the world of birding and nature.
Posted by David McRee at BlogTheBeach.com
Not all activities at the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival are outdoors. Much of the festival takes place in the Exhibition Center in the Gymnatorium at Brevard Community College. Vendors who serve the birding community showcase what they have to offer.
Thursday afternoon I had a couple hours of free time to wander around, talk to people, and snap some photos. I also took some video which I’ll post after some minor editing.
Raptors like this Northern Harrier attract all ages. They are such beautiful birds.
The Raptor Project has quite a few live birds of prey with them at the Festival and they are a major attraction. The Great Horned Owl is particularly striking; It is both beautiful and menacing. They are staging live shows featuring the amazing skills of the raptors.
Looking for a good pair of birding binoculars? Several top brands are represented at the Festival. This is the place to actually give them all a try before buying.
It’s amazing how much binoculars have improved over the years. You can get a great pair for $40 to $150 (or you can spend up to $2,500). You could literally spend hours trying out different binoculars before making a buying decision. You can’t do that online.
In addition to binoculars, many birders use high-powered spotting scopes mounted on a tripod to get a really close-up view of distant birds.
I had used telescopes before, but never a spotting scope. They are really easy to use and will bring a distant bird right up close. Today on a field trip to Blue Heron Wetlands I enjoyed a close up view of a very distant American Bittern and a Black Bellied Whistling duck through Pete Dunne’s spotting scope. With a spotting scope, distance is no barrier to enjoying the beauty of shy birds.
A spotting scope in use in the field. A got a good look at a distant Lesser Black-backed gull through this scope.
Field guides are an indespensable tool for any birder. Here you can look at them all and pick out the one that's best for you.
O.K., I’ll admit it–I’m a book junky. I just love books. Especially nature books and field guides. I could have spent the entire day perusing the field guides here at the Festival written by the “who’s who” of birding.
Ken and Linda Burgener lead birding tours from cruise ships visiting tropical ports-of-call like Costa Rica. Ken also produces beautiful DVDs with videos of Florida Birds.
I met Ken and Linda Burgener of Carefree Birding Adventures during our walk through Florida scrub jay territory at the South Lake Conservation Area. Ken saw me typing a Tweet on my iphone while in the field and suggested I save myself the aggravation by downloading Dragon Dictation. He then demonstrated the application on his iphone by dictating a message into his phone. The words he spoke instantly appeared on the screen as text. All you have to do next is copy to the clipboard and paste into Twitter or email or whatever. So I’ll be downloading Dragon Dictation to my iphone shortly.
Robert Amoruso's fabulous nature and birding photography is on display at the Festival. You have to see it to believe it.
I saw half-a-dozen or so Bald eagles in the wild during field trips this week. Seeing them at a distance is one thing, but you really get an idea of the size and power of these beautiful birds when you see them up close, like this one keeping watch over the Festival's exhibit center.
If you get a chance to stop by the exhibition center at Brevard Community College I highly recommend you do so. You’ll be glad you did. And bring the kids, they’ll love it if they have any interest in nature. And if they don’t, maybe they will before they leave.
For more info and details visit the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife web site.
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.
