Events Swirlwind

As you can see from the embarrassingly long time gap between my last BOTB post (other than son Liam's birthday salute) and this one, I've been otherwise occupied, mostly with events.

Going back to August... first there was the Rain Crows' weekend-long tour of Columbus, Ohio. We played the fabulous Birds, Bands, and Beer fundraiser event for the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. It was a glorious night of music under the stars. The next night we played a private party at the Columbus Zoo for our pals Kim & Amy. It was a combined birthday/retirement party for these gals and the riverfront pavilion was jammed with their friends. We jammed, too, as black-crowned night herons flew overhead in the evening glow. Our favorite fiddle player Jessie Munson joined us for these two shows, flying in from Memphis for the occasion. It was heaven on a stick.

The Rain Crows on stage at the Birds, Bands, & Beer event.

Next for me was the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water Reserve in central England. I've posted about the BirdFair before here on BOTB. But you can also get a feel for it from several of my podcast episodes. The BirdFair is a great event—the largest of its kind in the world. Every major birding destination, all the optics and gear and feeder and clothing and content and tour companies are there, along with artists, organizations, much more. Plus there's beer. My good buddy Tim Appleton is one of the co-founders of the event and seeing him is always a highlight. These days I go to see my friends from around the world as much as I go to do actual business. My main mission for the 2015 BirdFair was to let exhibitors know about the American Birding Expo which was coming up just two months later. More on that in a moment.

Visiting with my friends at BirdFair from INGUAT Guatemala.

The BirdFair raises funds for important bird conservation causes.

A day after returning from the BirdFair, I was on my way to Jamestown, NY for a board meeting of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. I've just started my second board term for RTPI. This is something I do to help repay in some small part the incredible support and many contributions Roger Peterson made to our family business, Bird Watcher's Digest. He was an early mentor to us and, later, a regular columnist for our magazine. RTPI carries on his legacy of sharing the joys of birds and nature. Supporting RTPI by becoming a member is a fantastic way of "paying it forward" to the next generation of birders and naturalists.

Roger Tory Peterson.

 Also part of the weekend was the opening of the Society of Animal Artists show at RTPI. I was a judge for the show, along with fellow board member Lee Peterson (Roger's son). We debated the merits of a huge array of works, with the assignment of choosing a handful to be awarded special recognition and prizes. It was tough, but enjoyable work.

My fellow judges for the SAA show included Lee Peterson (left), son of RTP.

The works submitted for the show were inspired.

Two weeks later, my events team was off to the Midwest Birding Symposium in Bay City, Michigan.

 

BWD was partnering with Michigan Audubon, the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy, and the Great Lakes Bay Region Conventions & Visitors' Bureau, to host the 2015 MBS in this charming town on the Saginaw River. This was the first time the MBS had been back in Michigan since 1991 and a good time was had by all.

The opening night festivities at the MBS were a lot of fun.

Visitors to Bay City's Stein Haus.

Brian "Fox" Ellis came alive as John James Audubon in an MBS keynote talk.

Two weeks after the close of the MBS, I loaded the birdmobile full of all manner of stuff and headed to Columbus, Ohio to prepare for the first-ever American Birding Expo.

Through the week, nearly the entire BWD staff arrived at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center/Scioto Metropark in downtown Columbus, Ohio to get things ready for the Expo. Just prior to the Expo, we helped host the American Birding Association's first-ever Members Summit, which went very well, according to our ABA friends. The ABA, Grange Insurance Audubon Center, the Columbus Metroparks, and BWD served as Expo host organizations, but the bulk of the organizing rested on the wide shoulders of the BWD events team and I couldn't be more proud of how they performed. We also had a small army of volunteers who saved our bacon more than once.

Attendees visiting exhibitor booths in the main Expo tent.

Maven Optics was an Expo exhibitor.

BWD Events Director Wendy Clark interviews Alvaro Jaramillo for the Expo video.

Saturday night we had live music from The Hip Replacements.

José Miguel Fernández Ramírez (right) was the lucky winner of the Zeiss Victory SF binocular, being presented by Zeiss' Rich Moncrief.

The Expo featured more than 80 exhibitors from all over the world. In fact we had 46 countries and 43 U.S. states represented among the exhibitors, sponsors, and attendees. The event was met with nearly universal praise from attendees, exhibitors, and hosts. Despite two days of cold, rainy, windy weather (with most of our exhibitors in a large tent) we all survived, did some good business, and made a lot of new friends and connections from the worldwide birding community.

New friends at the Expo Mary Warren of Ohio and Herbert Byaruhanga of Uganda.

More new friends: Simon Thompson (left) of Ventures Birding and Andrew Sebastian of Tourism Malaysia and  the Asian Bird Fair.

 * * * * *

Here it is now, in mid-November, and I'm just starting to get my legs under me again. That was a whirlwind three months, but I loved (almost) every minute of it. We're already planning next year's events and it would be great if you could join us.

You can keep in touch with what's going on here at Bird Watcher's Digest by signing up for BirdWire our bi-weekly e-newsletter (it's free). BirdWire is an award-winning digital publication that's full of timely content, fun bird quizzes, and special offers from our marketing partners. More than 30,000 people receive BirdWire in their e-mail In Box every other week. Do you?

A recent issue of BirdWire.

Coming up in 2016 we have three Reader Rendezvous (special birding weekends for BWD subscribers), the second annual American Birding Expo, and I'll be participating in a neat new event in November: the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour. I'll be leading a team in a week of birding, competing for a cash prize for a conservation cause in Honduras. It's going to be fun and we're going to see amazing birds.

So I'm taking my chewable vitamins, getting plenty of rest, and stretching my body, mind, and spirit in preparation for a 2016 that is even busier than 2015!

I'll see you out there with the birds, amigos y amigas!

Midwest Birding Symposium 2015

 

Even if you're not a birder from the Midwest, you've probably heard of the Midwest Birding Symposium. It's a biennial (every other year) birding event held somewhere in the middle of the United States. Its origins are in DuPage County, Illinois, about an hour west of Chicago, but the states of Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio have also hosted the Midwest Birding Symposium (MBS).

Bird Watcher's Digest has been the host of five different Ohio-based MBSs—in 1997, 1999, 2009, 2011, and 2013. We have a special fondness for this event. The symposium is like no other birding event. While some events are built around rare birds, or a spectacular conglomeration of birds, the MBS is more about connecting bird watchers to one another, about the experience of birding and learning together, and about offering exceptionally entertaining and edifying content to attendees. In that way, BWD and the MBS are almost twins. We both aspire to be purveyors of wonderful, content- and context-rich experiences for birders.

We've become the de facto keeper of the MBS and, in the interest of keeping things new and fresh, we found a new location and set of partners for the 2015 MBS, taking it back to Michigan. We'll be in Bay City, Michigan, this September 10 to 13, working with Michigan Audubon, the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy, and the Great Lakes Bay Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau to put on the 2015 MBS.

A quick visit to the MBS website will give you all you need to know about the 2015 event, so I won't recapitulate that here. But I will say that the event's slogan is true: it's "The World's Friendliest Birding Event." 

If you don't believe me, ask around, among your birding friends, about the Midwest Birding Symposium. Or ask the question online on one of the social media channels. I'm fairly sure you'll hear from some folks out there with first-hand MBS experience. If you can make it to Bay City (a charming town on the Saginaw River, near Lake Huron) this fall, please join us. We'll make sure you have a great time.

The early-bird deadline for registering is June 30. After that it'll cost you another $25 to register for the entire MBS.

Northern harrier, the logo bird for the 2015 MBS.

I hope to see you there. It's going to be a hoot.

New Podcast Episode: MBS Speaker Highlights

 

Episode 44 of my podcast "This Birding Life" is now available for your ears and eyes. This one features short excerpts from seven different speakers at the 2013 Midwest Birding Symposium. I wish I could have shared ALL of the speakers' programs, but it's probably best that you appreciate these things in person. Featured in this episode of TBL are portions of presentations by Jen Brumfield, George Armistead, Sharon Stiteler, Sara Morris, Scott Shalaway, Mark Cocker, and Al Batt.

 I hope you enjoy it. And while we're talking about the Midwest Birding Symposium, you can get on the pre-registration list for the 2015 MBS which will be held in Bay City, Michigan, September 10-13, 2015. We'll be co-hosting the event with Michigan Audubon and, in case you were wondering, Bay City is a charming town with lots of great birding sites nearby.


Thanks for listening!

Midwest Birding Symposium 2013 Recap: Part 2

This is the second half of my 2013 Midwest Birding Symposium recap.

 

Some additional images and memories from the four days of birding, symposiating, and socializing at the 2013 Midwest Birding Symposium. There were welcoming signs everywhere for attendees. 

The main entrance to the Lakeside Chautauqua.

Many of the Lakeside businesses, like the Ohh La La Cafe, stayed open just for the MBS.

It was great to see old friends and to meet new ones. The MBS is a great gathering point for that.

Carlos Bethancourt from Canopy Tower Panama and Elsa Thompson, founding publisher of Bird Watcher's Digest.

Greg (left) and Tim outside the Birder's Marketplace.

Greg Miller of "The Big Year" fame, meeting Tim Appleton, co-founder of The British BirdFair, the world's largest birding event. The MBS is one of those events where you have an opportunity to meet people you know from social media or from their affiliations and accomplishments. In that way it's a lot like a birding family reunion.

The speakers during the MBS were talented, engaging, and fascinating. Twenty different presenters spoke on things as varied as gull ID, moth watching, pelagic trips, nature journaling, birding in the digital age, and phone-scoping!

MBS attendees during a morning keynote program in Hoover Auditorium.

We had an army of volunteers helping us with the MBS. More than 100 Lakesiders volunteered to help and about another 50 kind souls from the birding community stepped in to do everything from stuffing attendee bags to guiding bird walks to driving golf-cart shuttles and helping to direct lost attendees to their proper destination.

Lakeside volunteers at our pre-MBS luncheon.

Four of the gals on the Bird Watcher's Digest staff, from left: Michelle, Laura, Wendy, and Ann at the MBS closing ceremonies.

In 2011, the MBS attendees in Hoover Auditorium on Saturday night set a world record (recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records) for the most people doing a simultaneous bird call. We hooted out the call of a barred owl. This year we participated in The International Day of Peace by having a giant group Peace Hug.

Everybody enjoying a #peacehug and flashing the peace sign for The International Day of Peace.

The American Birding Association, Lake Erie WingWatch, Columbus Audubon, and The Ohio Young Birders Club helped us make Young Birders' Day at MBS eventful and enjoyable. Despite the icky weather, the birding was really good. So was the pizza.

Five designated birding locales were selected as "official" MBS birding sites and volunteer guides were there at each site just after dawn to lead small groups of birders. Lots of great birds were found, including two species of phalarope, red knot, merlin, and golden-winged warbler.

On Sunday morning we held the Roadrunner 3K Fun Run and about 20 brave souls did not let the cold temperatures and howling Lake Erie wind deter their desire to run. We even had the Blue Goose from Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in the run. He (she? it?) finished surprising well despite never once taking to the air.

A very special thank you to our Ohio birding pal Ernie Cornelius for taking many of the images you've enjoyed here and on the MBS site. Ernie also coordinated getting images from a half-dozen other photographers and the he prepared a slide show which we projected on the giant screens each night in Hoover Auditorium. Thanks Ernie!

MBS Official Photographer Ernie Cornelius

And then it was Sunday afternoon and time for everyone to head home. It was another successful Midwest Birding Symposium and we owe that to all the support from our sponsors, co-hosts, volunteers, speakers, vendors, staff, and friends.

The next Midwest Birding Symposium will be held in Bay City, Michigan, on September 10–13, 2015. If you'd like to get your name and contact info on the pre-registration list, you can do so at www.midwestbirding.org.

Bird Watcher's Digest is starting an exciting new series of birding events.

In February of 2014 we'll be hosting our first-ever Reader Rendezvous in Minnesota where we'll go birding with funnyman Al Batt. Follow this link for details.

And in early April we'll be back at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus, Ohio for the second annual Birding Optics & Gear Expo. This sales-oriented event gives you a chance to "try-before-you-buy" choosing from among hundreds of optics and gear products for birders. 

Don't miss it!

We'll see you out there with the birds!