View Information on the January 2013 Birding Festival Here
Registration is Open!
What: 15th Annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival
When: January 25 – 30, 2012
Where: Brevard Community College, North Campus, Titusville, Florida, with field trips and activities all around Brevard County.
Visit the Festival web site to download the full-color program catalog by clicking on the cover image below. You can save it to your computer. Register early to get your first choice in classes and field trips!
We’re lucky to have the nation’s largest birding festival right here in Florida. If you’ve not attended before, here’s an idea of how it works and what it offers you:
The Festival headquarters are housed in the gym at Brevard Community College in Titusville, Florida, not far from the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Vendors from around the country (around the world, actually) set up booths to show what they have to offer–birding excursions, books, art, binoculars and spotting scopes–and many conservation oriented nonprofits are in attendance to let you know what they are all about. You will need to register ($10) to sign up for classes and field trips. Each class or field trip has its own cost, but many are free. You can learn a lot about birds and wildlife without spending much money.
Festival exhibition area.
The Raptor Project–a traveling road show of falcons, hawks, eagles and owls–puts on regular educational demonstrations that everyone enjoys.
Classrooms around the campus hold lectures and classroom study with nationally recognized leaders in the field of birding. Most classes last an hour or so. Here’s a sample list of just a few of the offerings:
- Warbler I.D. Workshop with Peter G. Merritt of Hobe Sound Productions
- Weather & Bird Migration with Paul Lehman
- Profoundly Unscientific Bird Identification with Dee Fairbanks Simpson of the Space Coast Audubon Society
- Pelagic Birds of Florida’s Northeast Coast with Michael Brothers of the Marine Science Center
- Monarch Migration with Louise Zematis of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours and Swallowtail Studios
- Introduction to Birding Optics with Ben Lizdas of Eagle Optics
- Horseshoe Crabs and Shorebirds of Delaware Bay, with Jeffrey A. Gordon of the American Birding Association
While classes are going on at the BCC campus, a multitude of professionally guided field excursions are taking place all over Brevard County. Some field trips are just a few hours in duration, others last all day. Some require getting up very early, while others begin in the afternoon. There’s something for all interests and all levels of birders. Here are just a few of the field trips:
- A Walk at Blue Heron Wetlands
- Beach Birds Introduction and Field Trip (Smyrna Dunes Park)
- Beginning Bird Walk at the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary
- Gull Fly-in at Daytona Beach Shores
- Making Tracks: How to Read and Interpret Wildlife Signs (Enchanted Forest Sanctuary)
- Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera
- Salt Lake Wildlife Mgmt Area / Seminole Ranch Conservation Area
Field trip with Kevin Karlson.
Keynote Speakers – One of my favorite parts of the Festival comes at the end of each day of birding and learning about birds. Keynote speakers inform and entertain us while keeping us on the cutting edge what’s happening in the birding world. This years Keynote speakers are Richard Crossley, Paul J. Baicich, James Currie and Victor Emanuel. You must register in advance for the Keynote presentations.
Keynote speakers clockwise from upper left: Richard Crossley, Paul Baicich, Victor Emanuel and James Currie.
If you’re a photographer, the Festival has lots of hands-on, in-the-field classes on how to use your camera to take better nature photos. Digiscoping is covered in quite a few of the classes. Here’s a sample of what’s offered:
- Using Manual Exposure Mode with Digital Cameras – Robert Amoruso
- How To: Bird Photography – Milton Heiberg
- Bird Photography Field Workshop at Viera Wetlands or Merritt Island NWR – Reinier Munguia
- Photography Field Workshops at various locations in the field – Joanne Williams
- Digiscoping Field Trip – Clay Taylor of Swarovski Optik
You can attend the Festival for a few hours, a full day, a couple of days, or the full week. It’s up to you. I normally schedule a combination of classes and field trips, and always make it a point to attend the evening Keynote presentations.
If you’re into pelagic birds, you’ll want to know about the full-day-at-sea pelagic trip on January 30. It’s limited to 110 registrants. You’ll be aboard the Pastime Princess, a 100 foot fishing boat that leaves out of Ponce Inlet at 6:30 am to look for some of the most sought-after bird species in Florida. Destination: the western edge of the Gulf Stream. In addition to birds, you’ll also be looking for whales, dolphins, fish, and sea turtles.
All the information you need is in the catalog. You can find the program catalog at the Birding Festival’s web site.
Or, you can call the Festival office at 800-460-2664 or 321-268-5224 between the hours of 9 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday.
You may also send email to neta@brevardnaturealliance.org
Required FTC Disclosure: I am required by law to inform you that I am compensated for writing about the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival.
