Rio Grande Valley Festival Coming Soon!
Apparently, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that showed up in central NY last week had a message for me: Get to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival! And quick!
“You REALLY ought to get the Rio Grande Valley Birding festival, Laura,” said a friend a few years back. “It’s one of the biggest festivals of the year, it attracts great people, and the BIRDS down there are fabulous.”
This conversation put RGV on my radar screen and I am happy to report that after a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher practically showed up at my central NY door with an invitation, I finally decided to attend the legendary festival. The festival, now in its 16th year, takes place in Harlingen, Texas from November 12 – 15th. Will you join me?
The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the top birding destinations in the United States. This is due in large part to its subtropical climate, which supports a unique avifauna not found anywhere else in the United States. This includes birds such as the Green Jay, Altamira Oriole, Audubon’s Oriole, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Olive Sparrow, Clay-colored Thrush, Great Kiskadee, Common Pauraque, and several others.
Altamira Oriole by Richard Crossley, complements of RGV
The birding alone is enough reason to venture to southern Texas (I mean, LOOK at that oriole to the right and see a checklist of birds expected at the festival), but the top birding talent is another good reason.
As festival organizers put it: The RGVBF is long-famed for the quality of its leaders. Bird with the big names—the authors and editors of your favorite books and publications, the movers and shakers in science, conservation, and education.
This year’s trip leaders and presenters include Don Kroodsma (Birdsong by the Seasons), Lang Elliot (song master extraordinaire who produced the regional Valley Bird Songs), Michael O’Brien and Kevin Karlson of the much-celebrated The Shorebird Guide, Jon Dunn of National Geographic Field Guide fame, as well as Jeff Bouton from Leica, Cameron Cox and Mike Frieberg of Nikon, Jeff Gordon, the dynamic birding duo of Chris Wood and Jesse Barry, and many more extraordinary birders. I hope to run into friends old and new, and meet some other birding bloggers such as Chris over at Picus Blog.
I plan to explore entirely new habitats, such as oak mottes and riparian woodlands associated with the mighty Rio Grande. I plan on taking a few field trips, including one to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, which has the second highest bird count in the entire US NWR system (the FIRST highest bird count goes to Laguna Atascosa NWR, which is also offered but filled up before I could nab a spot). In Santa Ana NWR, “Spanish moss drips from trees. Noisy chachalacas welcome the morning dawn. A malachite butterfly flits from the shadows, and the wildlife clientele are truly international.” I think I’m going to like this place.
My most wanted list is already prepared. Several of the valley’s subtropical specialties were added to my life list in past trips to Central America, but I still have many lifers to pursue such as the orioles mentioned above, Green Jay, Aplomado Falcon, Groove-billed Ani, Burrowing Owl, Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Say’s Phoebe, and Vermilion Flycatcher, to name just a few. I must pause and add Greater Roadrunner to my list, of course (beep beep). I can’t wait to show you what I see.
Green Jay by Richard Crossley, complements of RGV
My gentle readers will also appreciate this: I am taking a day-long immersion workshop in digital photography led by nature photographer Ruth Hoyt. Photography is a captivating hobby and I rarely go birding without my lens anymore. Yet the last six months with my new Nikon D90 has been a humbling experience. I stumble into decent shots frequently enough to keep me interested, but for the most part these successes have been purely accidental. With this workshop, I aim to change that. Maybe you’ll see a difference in the coming year! (But even if you don’t, humor me and say you do.)
It interests me to know: what can you learn about bird photography in a day? Moreover, what can you learn in a day when immersed in a fantastically birdy setting from sun up to sun down when taking tips from a pro photographer?
I’ll let you know! I’ll also let you know more about this famous festival when I return.
It’s not too late to be part of the fun. For more on the festival, visit the RGVBirdFest.com website. Download the RGV Festival brochure (pdf), and view the checklist of RGV birds. Beg, borrow, or steal and get THEE to the Rio Grande Valley!
Many thanks to Marci Fuller, RGV festival chair, and the Harlingen Visitors and Convention Bureau for their generous assistance and the use of the above photographs.
Sadly, I got around to thinking about this too late and so I have to plan for next year. I really would have liked to go, but too many good trips were already filled. I look forward to your report. Best wishes for an outstanding trip – I hope you get your target birds and many more.
I love birding in the RGV, but this will be the first time we are attending the festival, and I’m really looking forward to meeting and birding with others there. (I’m skipping the big Laguna Atascose and Santa Ana trips as we’re going down a few days early to do them on our own, in order to do some of the more distant locations like King Ranch and further north along the Rio Grande)
The photography workshop sounds great – and I look forward to hearing how much you do get out of it.
Look forward to meeting you there!!!
@ Andrew – Too bad it won’t work for this year. I”ll write as much as I can about it to give you a flavor. I see you were tempted by that cheap airfare to Belize on Twitter. There’s plenty of good places in Belize. I once stayed at a great ecolodge in the south near Punta Gorda – had a fantastic experience with about 70 + lifers, a great guide, and (gasp!) got to see the red-capped manakin courtship display. It was so over-the-top good (my first tropical birding experience). Machaca Hill Lodge.
@ Christopher Good to know you’ve been around the “RGV block” a time or two. I know who to go to for birding advice! See you there! And let me know how King Ranch is.