Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour

 For the next two weeks I'll be guiding one of the teams for the first-ever Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour (HBCT). It's a friendly birding competition that raises both awareness and money for bird conservation in this Central American country.

I'm excited to see some new birds, like lovely cotinga, plus getting to see some tropical favorites like toucans, trogons, and even (I hope) resplendent quetzals.

Lovely cotinga, well-named.

There are five teams competing, each with an international guide (Jeffrey A. Gordon, Tim Appleton, Richard Crossley, Adam Riley, and myself) plus a Honduran birding guide. Team/tour participants got to choose which team to be on and we're all competing to see the most bird species. The winning team, and the second-place team, each receive $10,000 to donate to the Honduran conservation cause of their choice.

Birding the Mayan ruins at Copan.

The HBCT was the brainchild of James Adams of Pico Bonito Lodge. He sees it as a way to highlight the birding opportunities in Honduras as well as a way to encourage the Honduran government and people to preserve habitat for birds and wildlife as a way to generate significant tourism revenue.

For some more background into the HBCT, please give a listen to my podcast episode about it.

James Adam, HBCT founder.

I'm not sure if my team will be one of the winners (full disclosure: I've never BEEN to Honduras) but if there's prize for the team that will have the most fun, I'm sure we'll be in the running.

Keel-billed motmot.

Keel-billed toucan.

You can follow along on my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (billofthebirds) feeds, or, follow all the posts from the event on the HBCT Facebook page.

I always consider myself to be so fortunate to participate in such an inspiring and auspicious bird conservation event. Wish us luck!

American Birding Expo 2016!

We're calling it "The World of Birding in One Place!" 

It's the American BirdingExpo and once again Columbus, Ohio, will be buzzing with birders and birding businesses for three busy fall days, September 16 to 18, 2016. Last year more than 2,500 people and 85 exhibitors, hailing from 35 U.S. states and 31 countries joined us for the first-ever Expo at the Grange Insurance AudubonCenter and Scioto Audubon Metro Park. It was monumental fun, and now we're gearing up to do it all again!

Here's this year's limited-edition Expo poster! Designed and hand printed by Bobby Rosenstock/Just A Jar.

In year two of the Expo, there will be more than 100 exhibitors from all over the world selling and promoting everything a birder could want: birding tours, optics, cameras, gear, clothing, bird feeders and houses, artwork, gift items, books, plus destinations, festivals, birding and conservation organizations, and more.

Stephen Ingraham from Carl Zeiss Sports Optics converses with two Expo attendees.

There will be a full array of optics available at the Expo. 

Have I piqued your curiosity, yet? If so, you might have some questions...

How is the Expo Different from a Regular Birding Festival?

As the Expo name suggests, this is an exposition of birding products, destinations, and services. While many of the continent's best birding festivals have a vendor area as a part of the festival, the Expo is nothing BUT a vendor area, with exhibitors on full display mode for most of three days. It's like a grouse or prairie chicken lek where the exhibitors are the displaying male prairie chickens and the consumers are the gathered females, just waiting to be impressed. 

Of course, there are a few similarities between a birding festival and the Expo. We will offer informal morning bird walks before the Expo opens each morning, and many of our exhibitors will be giving short presentations during the Expo. However the central purpose of this event is to connect the worldwide birding marketplace to North American bird watchers. So that's just what we'll do from noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

By the way, the Expo is hosted by Bird Watcher's Digest and co-hosted by our friends from the American Birding Association, Grange Insurance Audubon Center, and Franklin Country MetroParks.

Do Some Good: Expo Conservation Fund

Not only is this a nature lover's very best chance to sample everything the birding marketplace has to offer, it's also a chance to contribute to bird conservation and nature education through the Expo Conservation Fund. We're once again supporting three vitally important causes: one local, one national, and one international with the funds we raise during the Expo. 

Here are the causes that the Expo Conservation Fund supports:

Local Cause: The Young Urban Naturalists Program at Grange Insurance Audubon Center—sharing the wonders of nature with young people from Columbus City Schools. 

Partner: Grange Insurance Audubon Center.

The Young Urban Naturalists Program

National Cause: Red Knot Rescue and Conservation—funding field study and habitat acquisition efforts along the Delaware Bayshore.

Partner: The American Birding Association

The rufa race of the red knot is critically endangered.

International Cause: Save the Hooded Grebe of Argentina—funding the urgent and vital efforts of BirdLife International and Aves Argentinas to rescue this species from the brink of extinction.

Partner: BirdLife International. The American Birding Expo is proud to be a BirdLife Species Champion for the Hooded Grebe.

Adult hooded grebe with chicks on its back.

How Will the Expo Raise the Money? 

I'm glad you asked!

Although entry to the Expo is free, we're asking for a voluntary $5 per person contribution at the door, which will go directly to the Expo Conservation Fund. We'll also be selling tickets 

to the Expo Conservation Raffle with prizes that include discounted overseas trips, more than a dozen binoculars and scopes, giant gift baskets for birders, original art, and a mind-boggling array of other items. 

Deeper Meaning

All of this stuff is really great, but the Expo means so much more to me than just numbers and products. It's like a family reunion with all of my favorite people from all over the world. I've been so fortunate to get to travel the globe, seeing the birds and meeting the birders of some pretty far-off and fantastic places. So it's wonderful beyond description to be the host of an event that gathers the birding tribe from far and near to meet and connect with one another, and to come together to do some good for birds and the future of birding.

Here's a video we recently completed that gives more insight into the Expo.

So, what do you say? Want to experience The World of Birding in One Place? There's only one spot in this hemisphere where you can do that: The American Birding Expo in Columbus, Ohio, September 16–18, 2016.

If you're planning to come to the Expo, consider registering in advance because it has some advantages. Pre-registrants get a subscription to the Expo e-newsletter  plus notifications about specials, invitations to exclusive Expo events, and expedited entry when they arrive. There's no cost to preregister.

I'll see you out there with the birders!
—BOTB

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.

Birding Expo-Sure!

Ok. That's a rather clumsy play-on-words. I suppose I could have called this post "Expose Yourself to Birding" but that has a funny ring to it.

Those of you who are of a certain age will remember the wonderful TV series "Northern Exposure," which probably wins the prize for giving the most normal and realistic portrayal of bird watching in its episodes. When the show was still in production, we got a call here at Bird Watcher's Digest from one of the production assistants asking us to send some sample copies that they could put on a coffee table in some scene involving Holling and Ruth-Anne, the show's two birders. We never did see our "nice little bird magazine" in the show, and soon—like all good things—"Northern Exposure" came to the end of its run.

The Birding Expo-sure play-on-words is my way of introducing you to the inaugural American Birding Expo, which we're calling "a celebration of the birding lifestyle." The Expo is coming up this fall—October 2 to 4 to be exact—in Columbus, Ohio at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. Modeled after the wildly successful British Birdwatching Fair held each August in central England, the Expo is designed to give birders and nature enthusiasts an opportunity to shop among vendors offering all the products, goods, services, destinations, and anything else associated with a nature-oriented lifestyle. And, boy, there's going to be a lot to choose from...

Here we are, six months out from the Expo and already there are 85 different vendors committed to the event, representing more than 25 countries. But it's not just destinations and travel. All the major (and minor) optics companies will be there as will many makers of outdoor gear. You'll be able to buy a new, state-of-the-art bird feeder from Wild Birds Unlimited, a new spotting scope from Eagle Optics, a rotating backpack from Mindshift Gear, and book a tour with Rockjumper Birding Tours Worldwide.

Did I mention that there's no charge to attend the American Birding Expo? That's right, entry is free!

But wait... there's more.

If you're a member of the American Birding Association, you'll be able to attend the ABA Members' Summit just prior to the opening of the Expo and you'll get a special early-access VIP pass so you can beat the crowds! This event is also free to ABA members. And if you're not an ABA member, this will be an excellent time to join!

If you're part of a bird club, you can register your club and be eligible to win The Ultimate Fundraising Prize Package. If your club wins, you get to take these fabulous prizes back home to raffle off to raise money! Plus, you can attend our Saturday afternoon Bird Club Coffee Break and Brainstorm to share and swap ideas with other bird club leaders to help make your club more robust and successful.

We'll be raising funds (through voluntary contributions, games, silent auctions, and raffles) for bird conservation causes, including helping the mega-rare hooded grebe in South America with our friends at BirdLife International.

So consider this your personal invitation to the American Birding Expo. Like I said, entry to the Expo is FREE, but if you register for the Expo on our website, you will have the chance to win some fantastic prizes!

I'll be there at the Expo, kibbitzing with all of my friends and talking about birding, and all the places we want to go, things we want to buy, and birds we want to see. And I hope to see you there, too.

Episode 49 of This Birding Life Podcast

This Birding Life podcast episode #49 "A Visit to the British Bird Fair, Part 2" is now available for your ear-filling pleasure over at Podcast Central and in the iTunes Podcasts section.*

This episode is, as the title suggests, part 2 of my visit last August to the British Bird Fair held annually at Rutland Water Reserve in central England.

David Lindo, The Urban Birder, is interviewed in the new episode of This Birding Life.

This event is amazing for a birder to attend—so many vendors offering everything even remotely associated with birds and nature. A few years ago I can back with the following: two plastic animal masks for the kids, seven bird art books for Julie, an equal number of nature books for me, two new bird feeders, a collection of bird sound CDs, a new squall jacket, several sets of bird-themed notecards, a handful of hats, more birdy stickers for the birdmobile, a bucket list of a dozen world birding hotspots I hope to visit, and about 75 new birding friends. Needless to say I did not bring back much of the money that I went over with.

The Bird Fair was started by my friends Tim Appleton and Martin Davies more than two decades ago. Since then it's grown into the single largest annual generator of conservation funding for birds. So it's not only an amazing event, it has also raised incredible amounts of money for conservation and contributed to some critically important conservation efforts, especially in concert with BirdLife International. Visit the Bird Fair website to learn more about this wonderful event.

The Falkland Islands stand (or booth) at BirdFair.

Back to this podcast episode: It contains interview with several Bird Fair vendors from around the world, including England, Australia, Malaysia, Israel, and the Falkland Islands. It also includes a bit of traditional English country music recorded at the Saturday night barn dance at Bird Fair.

In our own modest way, we're trying to emulate the Bird Fair with our inaugural American Birding Expo, which will be held October 2 to 4, 2015 in Columbus, Ohio. The Expo is free and open to the public to attend. It's a commercial, retail event for birding and nature consumers to meet and engage with companies, organizations, destinations, manufacturers, retailers, publishers, and artists all of whom wish to market themselves to birders. There are currently more than 70 confirmed vendors representing more than 25 countries worldwide. So it's going to be a very interesting gathering of bird and nature people from around the globe.

In the days just prior to the Expo, the American Birding Association will host its first-ever Members' Summit right on the Expo grounds. This gathering is also free to ABA members and will feature seminars, panel discussions, and field workshops in addition to some fun birding field trips. Details on the ABA Summit can be found here.

And speaking of bird clubs, there are several special reasons for bird clubs to consider attending the Expo en masse. Those reasons can be found on this page on the Expo website.

You'll certainly be hearing more about the American Birding Expo in the months to come. And I hope you'll make plans to be there, too. If so, I'll see you there. If not I'm sure I'll see your somewhere out there with the birds.

Special thanks to Bird Watcher's Digest and Carl Zeiss Sports Optics for their sponsorship support of This Birding Life.

*[Sidebar: My podcast episodes are also apparently shared on a substantial number of podcast aggregators on the Web, which may help explain the rather staggering number of downloads it receives annually: more than 750,000!]