Category Archives: Warblers

Birding Festivals of the West 2026!

As April proceeds apace, it’s time to greet our spring birds with the word “Tadaima!”—Japanese for “Welcome Home!” However, it’s also an excellent time to finally do something you may have contemplated for years: attend a birding festival!

Never fear, it’s not too late. Particularly as recent geopolitical events make you rethink vacationing in Paris or visiting the Egyptian pyramids, birders have the chance to seize opportunities on our very doorstep. During the past few years, Braden and I have participated in a number of birding festivals and they have always been huge fun. They have allowed us to explore places and see birds that we never imagined, and connect with great birders from all around the world. Pick up a copy of BWD or Birding and you’ll see that there are literally dozens of birding festivals to choose from throughout the year. Today, I’d like to focus on three in the West that I’ll be participating in—and that you may want to consider for yourselves.

The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival, Cortez, Colorado, May 6-10

In just three weeks, I’ll be traveling to the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival in Cortez, Colorado, which runs from May 6 to May 10. Fun story: I was invited to this year’s festival because of a blog post I wrote last summer called In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee. The UMMV organizing committee happened to have chosen that bird as this year’s “mascot” and when they read the blog, Voila!, they invited me to give the keynote!

**The charismatic Green-tailed Towhee is this year’s featured bird at the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival—but is only one of the cool specialties participants are likely to see!**

Now I’ll admit that I’d never considered birding southwest Colorado, but as I delved into the various field trips, I grew more and more excited. The variety of birds and habitats in this part of the country is fabulous and includes many species that can be a challenge to see elsewhere. 180 species have been observed at the festival including waterfowl, shorebirds, raptors, and songbirds. Most exciting to me are the Southwestern birds I rarely get a chance to see including Black-throated and Sagebrush Sparrows, Gray Flycatcher, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, Scaled Quail, Sage Thrasher, Virginia’s Warbler, Juniper Titmouse, and at top of my list, Gray Vireo.

**The Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival not only offers up great birds, but a chance to explore some of our nation’s most iconic scenery and cultural sites, including Mesa Verde National Park.**

What really sets this festival apart is the chance to bird while exploring some of the most breathtaking scenery in America. Think dramatic canyon country like Mesa Verde National Park (see photo above) and Ute Mountain Tribal Park. This Four Corners region is loaded with archaeological sites and a unique culture found nowhere else in the world, and just begs to be explored. In fact, my wife and I are going down a couple of days early to do just that. To get there, we’re flying into Durango and renting a car. If this intrigues you as much as it intrigues us, do check it out! https://utemountainmesaverdebirdingfestival.com/

Wings Across the Big Sky, Kalispell, Montana, June 12-14

This will be Braden’s and my fourth time participating in our home state birding festival, and we couldn’t be more excited. One of the things that makes this festival special is that it travels to different parts of the state each year, allowing birders to explore Montana’s extensive variety of habitats and birds. Braden and I are leading two field trips, including one to the CSKT Bison Range, but all of the trips offer a surprising wealth of bird life. Montana is especially known for its raptors and grassland birds, but most people don’t realize that it’s a great place to see waterfowl and songbirds, too.

Just one of dozens of field trips at the 2024 Wings Across the Big Sky festival, including trip leaders, field biologist Hilary Turner (far left) and Andrew Guttenberg (third from left). And yes, that’s Braden towering over Hilary on the left!

If you’ve never visited Montana before, I highly recommend the field trips to Glacier National Park. At least ten kinds of warblers can be found in the park, along with four kinds of chickadees (think Boreal Chickadee), and three kinds of grouse, including Spruce Grouse. The park is especially known for breeding Black Swifts, Harlequin Ducks, Common Loons, and American Dippers. Again, you might just want to come a few days early to explore on your own!

**Glacier National Park may be the best place in the Lower 48 to score breeding Harlequin Ducks! Braden and I saw this one, our lifer, on our very first Wings Across the Big Sky festival!**

Glacier, though, is not the only draw to this part of Montana. Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in the West and hosts a great variety of birds along its shores. The Mission Mountains are truly one of the most spectacular and little-known mountain ranges in the Lower 48, and several field trips will explore the grasslands and wetlands of the Mission Valley. Passionate local trip leaders and Montana hospitality will ensure that you make this festival a regular part of your birding calendar.

For complete information, click here: Wings Across the Big Sky

Southeast Arizona Birding Festival, August 12-16, Tucson, Arizona

The Southeast Arizona Birding Festival has built a reputation as one of the nation’s premier birding festivals, and so when I was invited to speak and co-lead field trips at this year’s festival, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Of course, the first thing you’re probably asking yourself is “Arizona? In August???” I did, but believe it or not, this is one of the best times to bird the Grand Canyon State.

**Braden contemplating a glorious sunset near the mouth of Madera Canyon—one of the field trips I’ll be co-leading during the SE Arizona Birding Festival.**

Braden and I have been lucky to bird Arizona several times. See our posts “Portal Dreaming” and “Trogons and Border Walls.” One thing that always amazes us is the variety of habitats that can be found there, including wetlands, saguaro forests, and incredible canyons. Of special note are the region’s sky islands. These are mountains and mountain ranges that rise steeply out of the desert to altitudes of over ten thousand feet. Climbing up them, you quickly transition from desert through a variety of habitats, culminating with conifer forests at the top.

**While many people travel to Arizona specifically to see the Coppery-tailed (formerly Elegant) Trogon, Arizona offers an unparalleled diversity of other specialties to US birders.**

Sky islands not only provide welcome relief from Arizona’s summer valley heat, they offer an astounding variety of birds, many of which cannot be found anywhere else in the US. On our 2022 trip to Arizona, Braden and I nabbed life bird after life bird including Coppery-tailed (formerly Elegant) Trogon, Red-faced Warbler, Olive Warbler, Scott’s Oriole, Five-striped Sparrow, Mexican Whip-poor-will, and many more.

**Yellow-eyed Juncos are just one of the many specialty birds that can be found in Arizona during the upcoming birding festival.**

In addition to speaking at this year’s festival, I will be co-leading field trips to both Madera and Ramsey Canyons—two of my favorite places I have ever birded. But my buddy Roger and I are flying down a few days early to bird on our own. Registration for the festival begins on April 28, and if you’re interested, I wouldn’t hesitate to get on the website that day to reserve your preferred trips. The festival headquarters hotel, the Tucson Doubletree, is having some reservation issues, so you may want to call them directly as soon as possible to book a room.

SE Arizona Festival Link: https://tucsonbirds.org/festival/

So that’s it for this Festivals of the West post. We hope it has inspired you to give a birding festival a try. If the above festivals are out of reach, look into a local festival near you. For a list of festivals nationwide, check out Cornell’s All About Birds website. We can almost guarantee you’ll be glad you did! And if you spot me at one of the above festivals, please come and say Howdy!

If you’re enjoying FatherSonBirding, please consider subscribing by filling out the box in the column to the right. We won’t ever sell or give away your information and you can unsubscribe at any time. And do feel free to share this blog with others or link to it—but please contact us for any other uses! FatherSonBirding is written by REAL PEOPLE, and if you’d like to support our work, please also consider buying *new copies* of some of Sneed’s books, also shown in the column to the right.

Costa Rica’s La Angostura Florencia Wetlands: Turning Disappointment into Delight

3 Replies

Today, we wrap up our 2026 Costa Rican adventure with a post from Braden. Our nine-day trip was filled with incredible birds—and a share of setbacks caused by unexpected weather and road closures. In fact, circumstances prevented us from visiting our major final destination, El Copal (see Braden’s 2024 post). That disappointment, however, turned into great good fortune. Why? Because it redirected us to what would become one of our favorite birding locations of the trip.

My dad and I woke to the sound of a Barred Antshrike singing outside our Airbnb. After packing our stuff and stepping outside into the bright, clear morning, we realized that there were two antshrikes, one singing from each side of us. It took little prompting for both the male and the female to come in, giving us the best looks at the species so far on our trip and knocking off another target from my dad’s list. The antshrikes, along with several cooperative White-eared Ground-sparrows on the lawn of the property and the steady flyovers of parrots and oropendolas, started our day off strong.

Great looks at White-eared Ground-Sparrows and both male and female Barred Antshrikes helped kickstart our fabulous final day of Costa Rican birding.

We’d been so successful with our target birds on the trip that our plans for this morning were simple: bird somewhere not too far out of the way back to San Jose, and spend one last morning enjoying Costa Rica’s birds. The night before, we’d decided on a nearby wetland called La Angostura Florencia, where the wide open habitat would render the birds easier to see than in the dense, rainforests we’d spent the last few days.

Disruption of our plans helped us discover several great new CR birding locations, including Tranki Garden near Turrialba. Here, the proprietor David has been creating a great new birding hotspot where we got our lifer Ochre-bellied Flycatcher!

So far, during the trip, we’d had pretty bad luck with just looking at eBird hotspots and trying to bird them. Some hotspots were closed, and we had caught David, the manager of Tranki Garden, off guard by showing up without calling ahead of time. One place we’d gone to was just completely private property (which we hadn’t known ahead of time), and the owner asked us to leave. La Angostura Florencia wetlands, however, was great—no locked gates, no private property signs, just a public, protected wetland nestled into the foothills of the Talamancas. As soon as we pulled onto the dirt road leading towards the water, we started spotting things.

**As La Angostura Florencia rolled into view, we immediately became excited by its birding potential—potential that would be fully realized!**

The first sighting of the day was our most unexpected. We stopped to scan a little creek, and my dad spotted a Black-crowned Night-Heron lurking on a rock. As I stepped out of the car to look, movement caught my eye—a large, brown mammal trotting through the forest on the other side of the road. As it grew closer to us, I realized this wasn’t a coati (which is a fairly common mammal across most parts of Costa Rica) but a tayra! Tayras are large members of the mustelid group (the group of mammals that includes weasels, otters and martens) and I’d never seen one before, despite all the time I’d spent in Costa Rica. We turned our attention towards the tayra as it scaled a tree and disappeared into the foliage above. Despite the mosquitos moving in on us from all sides, the day was off to a great start!

Though we’d seen a Green Ibis earlier on the trip, this pair at La Angostura Florencia gave us our first close, leisurely looks. Unlike other ibises, the Green Ibis prefers swampy or flooded forests to wide-open wetlands.

We kept driving slowly, rounding a corner and flushing a bird up from the road. “Sunbittern!” my dad yelled as it escaped into the trees. We got out again in an attempt to relocate it, but couldn’t get eyes on it again. Fortunately, there were tons of other birds around, calling, singing and foraging in the trees above and around us. We slowly made our way down the road, identifying warblers and other neotropical migrants above our heads as a variety of species gave us great, eye-level views. The dawn chorus consisted mostly of flycatchers, but we did hear a Thicket Antpitta singing from the shrubby, overgrown edge of the road!

As the wetlands came into view, we again got out and walked towards them, sidestepping a massive mud puddle in front of us. Two Green Ibises croaked from a Cecropia tree a dozen meters away, and we stopped to watch a Gray-headed Kite, our second of the trip, hunting and soaring over us. The heads of waders and waterfowl kept popping up from the grassy marsh in front of us, and we identified them one at a time.

**We got wonderful views of this Gray-headed Kite both perched and in flight—one of our best raptor experiences of the trip.**

“Snowy Egret!”

“Black-bellied Whistling-Duck!”

“Purple Gallinule!”

“Ooh, that one’s a Limpkin!”

While many of the wetland birds were the same as the birds we’d seen at Caño Negro, seeing them in a new location felt satisfying. Costa Rica isn’t known for its extensive wetlands, but the presence of these birds at La Angostura Florencia meant that at least several populations of these species could be found in abundance in the country. We spotted some fun songbirds in the shrubs on the border of the wetland, too. Both Olive-crowned and Gray-crowned Yellowthroats sang from the grass, and a Slaty Spinetail rattled off from a bush near the road.

Near the center of the wetland, the grass gave way to a large river. On a sandbar in the river stood a Wood Stork alongside a couple of egrets, and a Muscovy Duck floated by with a horde of babies in tow. From one overlook, my dad and I got both Ringed and Amazon Kingfishers while White-throated Crakes sounded off in the tall grass.

As we reached the end of the road, a flash of movement and tail feathers caught our eye. A small, gray raptor had launched out of trees, just missing what we assumed to be a Squirrel Cuckoo as it dove for the cover of the grass. The raptor landed on a low bough in front of us, and as I raised my binoculars, I realized that it was not the Gray Hawk I’d assumed it to be. No, this was an accipiter, slate gray, with a dark cap, yellow eyes and rufous legs.

“That’s a Bicolored Hawk!” I yelled, probably too loudly, though the bird seemed unperturbed.

**One of our best raptors of the trip, Bicolored Hawk was a bird I had longed to see since first coming to Costa Rica two years earlier.**

Literally two days ago, after seeing a Black Hawk-Eagle, I had been texting my friend Drew about the raptors I had yet to see in Costa Rica. Raptors are some of the coolest, and most difficult, birds in the neotropics. They’re hard to target and show up seemingly at random. Over the months I’ve spent birding in Central America, I’d slowly accumulated most of the uncommon raptors in the region—White Hawk, Ornate and Black Hawk-Eagle, Barred Hawk, various kites and falcons. But the few that I’d never seen before are not only elusive but quite rare, and the two I wanted most were some of the rarest: Bicolored and Tiny Hawks. Both of these species are widespread across Latin America but very infrequently reported, and while I’d been looking for spots to search for both (especially Bicolored) as my dad and I had journeyed across the country, I’d just had to admit to myself that nowhere were these species reliable. By this last day of the trip, in fact, I’d given up on seeing them.

**“You lookin’ at me? I’m lookin’ at you, Braden!”**

But suddenly, there was an adult Bicolored, taking in the sunlight, fifty feet away. My brain went into shock as my dad and I stared at it and snapped pictures. It felt like seeing a ghost. After about five minutes, the ghost flew away, leaving its vivid image seared into my memory forever.

My dad and I high-fived, then turned around, not quite believing our luck. And our luck continued.

On the way back down the road, we ran into a trio of birders—two from Great Britain and their guide—who had just spotted a Great Potoo a couple hundred meters away. They wanted to scope the wetlands for Snail Kites first, but said they would walk back to show us where the potoo was afterwards. We forged on ahead, hoping to find the roosting nocturnal bird by ourselves. As we passed a gap in the trees, I spotted exactly what the other birders had been looking for—a single Snail Kite soaring over the marsh. This location was known for the species, and it was only my second sighting of one ever, after the ones I’d gotten to see with Nick in Florida in 2022. (See THIS POST.)

**As much as we’d been looking forward to seeing one, we had to admit that our first ever “potoo lump” er, huh, lacked in excitement.**

We kept walking, my dad taking the lead, when a small, yellow and white flash caught my eye. I snapped my fingers, alerting my dad to walk back towards me. There, in the shade on the side of the road, perched a White-collared Manakin. My dad had been trying to get good looks at manakins during the whole trip, but they had been incredibly uncooperative. I’d spotted a White-ruffed while he was in the restaurant at Arenal, and we’d spent hours trying to get good looks at Long-tailed a few days before. And now, here was my favorite of the bunch, a spectacular male White-collared, sitting and posing right in front of us. Between the manakin, the Bicolored Hawk and the antshrike this morning, it felt as if the trip had come completely full circle.

**This great look at a White-collared Manakin finally ended a string of frustrating close calls my dad had experienced trying to get a good look at one.**

To make things even better, the British birders returned and showed us where the Great Potoo was! It was a little underwhelming, given that the bird was far away and completely still, but a lifer’s a lifer! We finished the morning with around 95 species, far exceeding my expectations for the wetland and wrapping up our phenomenal Costa Rica expedition.

Link to our Costa Rica eBird Trip Report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/482094

If you enjoyed this post, here are links to the previous Costa Rica posts in this Series:

Birding Costa Rica—Beginning at the Airport

Arenal for Antbirds

Caño Negro: Costa Rica’s Epic Wetland

**A final selfie on what turned out to be one our best birding outings of the trip.**

Caño Negro: Costa Rica’s Epic Wetland (Birding Costa Rica, Part 3)

2 Replies

If you’re enjoying FatherSonBirding, please consider subscribing by filling out the box down and to the right. We won’t ever sell or give away your information and you can unsubscribe at any time. And do feel free to share this blog with others or link to it—but please contact us for any other uses!

When blogging about a birding trip to Costa Rica, it’s almost impossible to choose which things to cover. As anyone who’s been there knows, every day offers avian delights, whether you’re walking through rainforest or hanging out in a town or city. One place we simply cannot overlook, however, is Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge.

**The lagoon area of Cano Negro, at high water because of recent rains.**

Caño Negro is one of Costa Rica’s rare, large interior freshwater wetland areas and lies almost within sight of the Nicaraguan border. I had never heard of it until Braden sang its praises when he studied abroad down there two years ago. As he planned our itinerary for this year’s trip, he left no doubt it was a must-see destination. To reach it, we left the La Fortuna area (see our post Arenal for Antbirds) and drove an hour and a half up highway 35 through flat agricultural country, before turning west on the access road to the refuge.

**Seeing such large numbers of Northern Jacanas was a first for me!**

The access road is one of those tricks perpetuated with great amusement on tourists. Paved for its first few miles, it suddenly degenerates into a cratered track that reduces the speed of rational drivers to about 10 km/hour. Nonetheless, this road is not to be endured, but to be birded. Along its stretch are a rich variety of grasslands, mini-wetlands, and patches of trees that are loaded with birds. I was thrilled to see my first Northern Jacanas and Purple Gallinules of the trip, but these were quickly overshadowed by the Variable and Morelet’s Seedeaters (see our post Chasing Morelet’s Seedeaters), and Thick-billed and Nicaraguan Seed-Finches. The highlight of the drive was a brief, but spectacular view of yet another lifer for Braden—a Black-collared Hawk!

**These overcompensating “giant-billed” Nicaraguan Seed-Finches are a specialty of the northeast part of Costa Rica.**

The next morning, we eagerly met our guide, Chambita, and his boat driver/assistant, Yalvin, at one of the town boat docks. Because of the heavy unseasonable rains, the Rio Frio was running higher than usual, but still flowed along at a placid pace perfect for birding. Most birding boat tours have two components—the river itself and a lagoon that feeds into it. From Braden’s past comments, I was most excited about the lagoon, but the river relentlessly amazed us.

**Chambita and Braden proved a dynamic duo in detecting Caño Negro’s astonishing bird life.**

As we began slowly making our way downstream, I was thrilled to see both new and familiar species. Over the first hour, the kingfishers stole the show, as we saw five of Costa Rica’s six kingfisher species, missing only the most common one—our own Belted Kingfisher that we enjoy back home. The ones we saw included both the big bruiser Ringed Kingfishers and the two that are hardest to find: Green-and-Rufous Kingfisher and American Pygmy Kingfisher.

**I’m a sucker for kingfishers and was ecstatic at seeing FIVE species, including this American Pygmy Kingfisher.**

Chambita, though, quickly demonstrated why he is a local legend among expert birders by calling out dozens of other bird songs and calls, many of them flycatchers that I had no hope of recognizing, but that Braden raptly absorbed. Then, we spotted a species Braden most hoped to see—Snowy Cotingas.

I’ll just say it: Cotingas are bizarre. And I’m not alone in thinking so. Birds of the World remarks, “No family of birds exhibits more diversity of auditory, behavioral, and plumage elaborations, all the result of rampant sexual selection, than do the cotingas.”

**We saw five Snowy Cotingas on our outing—an unusually high number that pretty much made Braden’s entire day.**

I actually didn’t think I’d ever seen a cotinga until Braden informed me that two of Latin America’s most spectacular birds, the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock and Three-wattled Bellbird, are cotingas. Even then, I only started getting interested in them as a group when mi amigo Roger and I saw Black-tipped Cotingas last year in Colombia, inspiring a spate of jealousy from Braden.

Today, when we saw the Snowy Cotingas, I had to restrain Braden from jumping out of the boat. “I wanted to see them,” he gushed, “but I didn’t think we would!” That, of course, got me super excited about them, too—delicate white birds perched atop trees high above the river.

**Though not rare, Sungrebes can be shy and difficult to find, so we felt lucky to see one. The birds are actually more closely related to rails than grebes.**

The river offered many other treasures including a rare Sungrebe, eight species of warblers, three kinds of orioles, and four kinds each of woodpeckers and parrots. Oh, and caimans and monkeys, too. And that’s before we turned around and went to the lagoon.

A troop of Squirrel Monkeys provided us with a welcome bonus as they fearlessly leaped a twenty-foot gap between trees. Look closely and you can see a baby on this one’s back! Talk about Livin’ on a Prayer!

When we reached it, the lagoon presented a totally different view than Braden had previously experienced. On his past visits, the water had been relatively low, i.e. perfect for wading birds. Recent rains, however, had raised the water dramatically. We still found a great diversity of birds, but numbers were lower than usual.

**Ever since seeing a Fasciated Tiger-Heron with Roger in Colombia last year, I have been in love with tiger-herons, and this was my first chance to get good looks at Bare-throated Tiger-Herons!**

Still, all manner of wading birds presented themselves. My favorites were Bare-throated Tiger-Herons and the uber-strange Boat-billed Herons. It was a tough call, though, with Tricolored Herons, a Roseate Spoonbill, Little Blue Herons, Green Herons, and three kinds of ibises—Glossy, White-faced, and Green—all competing for our attention.

**A yawning Boat-Billed Heron is a bird after my own heart. Not only is it one of the coolest birds in Costa Rica, it needs its afternoon nap, just like moi!**

A special treat for both Braden and me was getting to see our first Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, which Chambita identified from a distance as it swooped down low over the lagoon and passed within a couple hundred yards of our boat. Resembling a Turkey Vulture—and sharing many of its characteristics—the Lesser Yellow-headed’s yellow head became visible only as it approached more closely. I love vultures.

**This intriguing Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture was a special first for both Braden and me.**

As we continued to explore, many more species kept showing up including a couple of Wood Storks, a Greater Yellowlegs, and both Crested and Yellow-headed Caracaras.

**Roger and I had seen a Yellow-headed Caracara leap up onto a cow last year in Colombia, but this guy gave Braden and me an even better show.**

A couple more of our favorite finds were a pair of Yellow-tailed Orioles and a Black-headed Trogon, all of which offered close up incredible looks.

We finished up our boat tour with classic looks at both Yellow-tailed Orioles and . . .

We were happy that Chambita and Yalvin seemed as excited by the day as we were. They spent far more time with us than was strictly necessary and you can bet we appreciated it.

After bidding them farewell, we headed back out the same cratered road we came in on and were rewarded as richly as on the day before. On the drive, we paused to enjoy Green Kingfishers, Common Tody-Flycatchers, a Fork-tailed Flycatcher, and the perfect capstone to the day—our lifer Red-breasted Meadowlarks! We ended the day with more than 130 species, one of our best days of birding ever. Pura Vida!

Our Caño Negro checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S303336007

I was especially thrilled to see a Red-breasted Meadowlark after recently reading that the similar-looking South American Pampas Meadowlark is critically endangered. Loss of grassland habitat and rampant use of pesticides has drastically reduced populations of many meadowlark species, including those found in the US.

To arrange a trip with Chambita, check out his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100047210666376.

Flight of the Godwit (Book Review)

4 Replies

**Bruce M. Beehler’s *Flight of the Godwit: Tracking Epic Shorebird Migrations* (Smithsonian Books, 2025)**

Any birder who has aspired to learn about shorebirds will find a welcome companion in Bruce M. Beehler’s new book, Flight of the Godwit: Tracking Epic Shorebird Migrations. Shorebirds, after all, can be considered somewhat mythical, mysterious beings. Not only do many of them make remarkable annual migrations covering tens of thousands of kilometers, quite a few are notoriously difficult to identify. Certainly, Braden and I realized we had entered a more advanced stage of learning when we started to search out and try to identify shorebirds and, in fact, we both often still struggle with figuring out some of the more difficult shorebird species. Yet the more we encounter and learn about these birds, the more we love them—and that same kind of passion radiates from Beehler’s words as he sets out on his own journeys to observe and learn more about these birds.

**In Montana, we are lucky to host three of the “Magnificent Seven” shorebirds as breeders—including Marbled Godwits, one of the focal birds of Beehler’s new book.**

In Flight of the Godwit, Beehler recounts a series of recent adventures across the US and Canada to follow and observe shorebirds as they migrate north, stop over at resting and staging sites, settle on breeding grounds, and then head south again for their long non-breeding seasons. Although Beehler discusses all of our North American shorebirds at some point, he clearly targets what he calls the Magnificent Seven: Hudsonian Godwit, Marbled Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Long-billed Curlew, Whimbrel, Bristle-thighed Curlew, and Upland Sandpiper. As he shares his encounters, he sprinkles in liberal amounts of natural history and personal experiences about these birds to make the book much more than a birder’s travelogue.

**This Marbled Godwit checked us out as we were scoping shorebirds in Westby last summer.**

That said, the travelogue aspects of the book are a big part of what fascinated me about this tale. Even after eleven years of birding, my shorebird experiences have been much more limited than I would like. Although my home in Montana is fortunate to host a number of breeding shorebirds—including three of the Magnificent Seven—for most shorebirds, we get only brief glimpses of them as they pass through in spring and fall. Partly because of this, Braden and I have especially sought out shorebirds on our out-of-state travels to Texas, New England, and the West Coast. Sigh. It is never enough.

**It always surprises new birders that some of our largest shorebirds actually breed in grasslands—including Long-billed Curlews.**

As I followed Beehler up through the Midwest during spring migration and around Alaska during breeding season, his experiences filled in giant gaps in my own experience with these remarkable birds. I got a better sense of where the birds stop to refuel and rest, and my vague impressions of their nesting territories and habits were sharpened by Beehler’s actual observations and descriptions. Many times, I found myself nodding my head thinking, Yeah, I know what he’s talking about or Oh, so that’s what they’re doing. All of this felt especially satisfying since there’s a good chance I will never experience many of Beehler’s destinations for myself.

**As much time as I try to spend with shorebirds, it is never enough. *Flight of the Godwit* helped fill in many of the experiences I probably will never have for myself.**

Those who will appreciate Flight of the Godwit the most probably are birders who have already spent time observing shorebirds and struggling over their identifications. Those with limited shorebird experience may find themselves getting a bit lost as Beehler throws out bird names that may seem a bit abstract without solid brain images to connect them to. Still, there’s a good chance that even beginning “shorbers” will find that Beehler’s tales of adventure excite them to plunge more deeply into this remarkable set of birds. As for intermediate and advanced birders—especially those who may never get to Alaska or follow spring migration through the Midwest—I highly recommend this intriguing book that is not only a valuable educational document, but a labor of love with which many of us can relate.

You can order Flight of the Godwit from almost any outlet that sells books—but why not visit your local independent bookstore and order it there? Another easy way to do this is through the online website Bookshop.org.

Protecting Texas’ Globally Important Bolivar Peninsula—We Can Do This Now!

3 Replies

Instead of your regularly-scheduled blog, we today invite FSB readers to join in on an urgent appeal to help protect one of North America’s coolest and most vital bird habitats—the globally important Bolivar Peninsula. Learn more and donate by clicking here—or on the Piping Plover below.

If you’ve followed FatherSonBirding—or read my books Birding for Boomers or Warblers & Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding—you know that High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula outside of Houston have played pivotal roles in Braden’s and my birding experiences. In these locations, the Houston Audubon Society (HAS) has worked tirelessly to obtain, restore, and protect vital habitat for both migrating and resident birds. On our first visit to High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula in 2016, Braden and I saw an astounding forty-five Life Birds in one day! These included everything from Scarlet Tanagers and Least Terns to Piping, Black-bellied, and Semipalmated Plovers.

**Braden and I saw our first-ever Piping Plovers on the Bolivar Peninsula, and I was lucky to see this endangered species again on a subsequent visit.**

Even though I live in Montana, I became an annual supporter of HAS shortly after that visit. Even better, I have been fortunate to visit the area three more times. Every trip has been a highlight of my birding career. Each time, I have seen gobs of amazing songbirds, shorebirds, and waders, and learned a ton about birds. Just check out some of my past posts about visiting the region:

Turkey Day Texas Adventures Part 1: Pursuing Plovers

Tangled!

Going Cuckoo for Fall Warblers in Texas

Anahuac Lifer Attack

Unfortunately, during my visits, I also have noticed an inescapable fact: the Bolivar Peninsula is being developed at an astounding rate and the reason is clear: beachfront property. During our first visit there, Braden and I noticed quite a few houses along the 25-mile or so stretch of the peninsula. On each subsequent visit, I was blown away by how many new houses had sprung up since my previous visit! On my most recent trip, this past April, I realized with dismay that the entire peninsula would soon be wall-to-wall housing developments.

**One of dozens of major housing developments that have sprung up on the Bolivar Peninsula since Braden and I first visited in 2016.**

I can’t even begin to explain how poorly-conceived this kind of rampant development is. Never mind that it has gobbled up some of the best remaining Gulf Coast wildlife habitat, it is virtually guaranteed that hurricanes will totally destroy these developments as they have in the past—and with increasing frequency thanks to climate change (see this Hurricane Ike story and this astonishing storm list). In fact, the ability of the peninsula in its natural state to block tidal surges, prevent erosion, and soak up storm water economically outweighs by far the short-term profits from this get-rich-quick development.

Rampant development in coastal areas not only destroys critical habitat, it greatly diminishes the ability of the coast to withstand hurricanes and other major storms. Though I’d love to enjoy a beachfront house like this myself, economically it is a lose-lose situation, both for homeowners and taxpayers, who often get stuck with paying the bills for disaster cleanup and rebuilding.

Still, the lure of fast profits is just too much here as it is in many other places. And that’s why I’m writing this post. Right now is one of our last best chances to protect what remains of this globally vital birding habitat. How? Currently, HAS owns and manages more than 3,000 acres of Bolivar Peninsula habitat—natural islands in an expanding sea of development. And yet, right at the entrance to their Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, a new development recently cropped up. Ironically dubbed the Sanderling Development, it threatened to wipe out critical habitat and destroy a buffer to the core of the Bolivar refuge. The good news? Through heroic efforts, HAS managed to raise $3 million to buy 25 acres of the land this past July. Now, however, they need another $3 million to complete purchase of the remaining 27 acres of the property. This land is so vital that for the first time in decades, HAS has issued a public appeal for funds—And that’s where we come in!

Just one of many Bolivar housing developments, the proposed Sanderling Development directly threatened the ecological integrity of the Bolivar Flats refuge right across the road. However, HAS still needs to raise $3 million to complete the property’s acquisition. Click on this photo to donate!

No matter where we live, securing this last bit of property should be a major priority for birders. Not only does it help provide essential stop-over areas for millions of migrating birds that spread out across the continent, it helps protect critical breeding and wintering habitat. Endangered Piping Plovers, Black Rails, and Red Knots are just three endangered species among hundreds of other species that use this important area.

**A fall Long-billed Curlew at Bolivar Flats—perhaps just returned from breeding in Montana?**

So how about it? Do you have $25 to chip in? $100? $1000? If you do, I can say with confidence that your money will rarely be better spent. Along with donating, why not plan a spring or fall trip down to the area? If you are fortunate enough to be able to do this, I can almost guarantee it will be one of the highlights of your birding experiences. You also will not have the slightest doubt that your investment in this area is one of the best you will ever make. To donate, CLICK HERE NOW!

And with that, I will sign off so I can make a contribution myself!