Florida Birding and Nature Festival — Field Trips Filling Up Fast

[printfriendly]

[su_pullquote align=’right’] Pelagic birds, like this white-tailed tropicbird, will be the topic of a Saturday afternoon seminar at the Florida Birding and Nature Fest. [/su_pullquote]

For most of us, the biggest challenge at the Birding and Nature Festival will be deciding which event to attend during the jam-packed four-day expo. Serious birders, of course, will have the opportunity to add lifers to their list with expert guidance at the peak of the fall migration through Tampa Bay – in places that aren’t necessarily open to the public otherwise.

And even though it’s scheduled for Oct. 17 to 20 — nearly two months away — spots on some of the most popular field trips have already sold out, such as the boat trip to Shell Key Preserve. “We’ve tried to repeat the events that have been most popular in the past so everyone gets a chance to do them, but also to set up new trips for the regulars who come back every year,” said Mary Keith, president of Tampa Audubon Society and the festival organizer.

The field trips and seminars also are set up for novices as well as expert birders. Ever wonder about those cute little birds zipping along the beach? Be sure to sign up for the Friday boat trip to Outback Key and the Lower Terra Ceia Preserve. You’ll be with experts who can easily explain the differences between terns, gulls, sandpipers and plovers.

On the other hand, advanced birders will absolutely want to tour Fort DeSoto Park with leaders Dave Goodwin and Jim Eager, who each have decades of experience in Florida birds. More than 250 species of birds have been sighted at the park. With fall migration in full swing, chances are great that you’ll see birds you’d have to travel thousands of miles to find otherwise. “It’s so popular that we’ve scheduled it for both Friday and Saturday,” Keith said.

Other areas, like Bullfrog Creek, the Fred and Ida Schultz Preserve, the Cross Bar Ranch and Mosaic’s translocation site for Florida scrub-jays, are generally closed to the public so few people (except the experts guiding the tours) have seen them.

And for the first time, a field trip will focus on banding birds at Hammock Park in Dunedin. It’s a fascinating look at how ornithologists capture, measure, weigh, band and release individual birds so that they can be tracked through their lifetimes. They’ll be working primarily with migrating birds that drop in to rest before heading further south so it’s another opportunity to see birds you probably won’t find in Florida often.

For people who prefer air-conditioning, an incredible array of speakers will be leading presentations on topics ranging from birds and dragonflies and butterflies to bobcats.

Another first for this year: a full-day symposium on turtles, the most threatened species of animals on earth. Florida’s wide variety of habitats support 28 of the 62 species known to occur in the United States, the world’s most turtle-rich country. The presentations will both introduce turtles to newcomers who may not realize how diverse turtle species are, as well as share scientific advances within the field, said George Heinrich, a field biologist who owns Heinrich Ecological Services and serves as the executive director of the Florida Turtle Conservation Trust.

“Our goal is to reach out to a wide group of people and introduce turtles to a mixed audience,” he said. Topics range from the threatened gopher tortoise and diamondback terrapin to Suwanee cooters and leatherback turtles.

Nationally known keynote speakers highlighting the evening activities include:

• Dr. Mark Madison, the national historian at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), speaking on Florida’s long history as a battleground for the once-new idea of “conservation.” President Theodore Roosevelt designated Florida’s Pelican Island as the nation’s first national wildlife refuge in 1903, and the state remains a pioneer in wildlife conservation today. Madison has been with USFWS for 20 years and his favorite natural areas are on Florida refuges.
• Denver Holt, founder and president of the Owl Research Institute (ORI), one of the premier owl research centers in the world. Holt is a widely published author and has been featured in countless articles from National Geographic to The New York Times, as well as on many television programs.
• Kenn Kaufman, author of Kaufman field guides, a fellow of the American Ornithological Society and has received the American Birding Association’s lifetime achievement award – twice. The most recent of his dozen books is A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration, published in April 2019.

For more information and to register for the festival, visit https://www.floridabirdingandnaturefestival.org/

[su_divider]