Archive for Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival
Oct
31
Silent Auction Sizzles
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The 2011 RGVBF is not only BIG it’s HOT. Starting with the HOT SAUCE at the souvenir booth and continuing with the HOT items in the Silent Auction.
Quality scopes, binoculars and optic accessories donated by top optics vendors Eagle Optics, Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica, Kowa and Opticron are always popular. When and where to use them? How about at your next Festival at Space Coast in Florida or San Diego Bird Fest in California or even a return to next year’s RGVBF? Special packages will be available for bidding.
Already planning a return to the Rio Grande Valley? Bid on B&Bs across the valley and cover all the best birding spots. Start your visit with a stay at Atascosa Outlook B&B in Arroyo City, next stop La Feria at Mas Aves B&B, then on to Alamo Inn B&B in Alamo. Or spend a week in one comfortable and convenient location, Harlingen’s Golden Palms Retirement Resort. (Check out their food at the Thursday Kordial.) Want to go further south? Make that winning bid on a 3 night stay at The Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras.
Bid on Dolphin Watch trips, fishing trips, photography lessons with Ruth Hoyt as extra things to do while in the Valley or even if you live here. Did I mention the artwork, guide books, bird houses, bird feeders, bird photos?
Come by the Silent Auction booth and bid, bid, bid on all these sizzlin’ HOT deals.
Oct
07
The RGVBF and The Big Picture
Posted by: | CommentsWe’re one month away!
RGVBF Volunteers are scurrying like ants (but ones that don’t bite!). The President Danny Hoehne is toting boxes of t-shirts, meeting with city officials, lining up the morning bus loading volunteers. The Chair Marci Fuller is producing nametags, tweaking the poster, scheduling authors signings. The Secretary Norma Friedrich is calling uncommitted sponsors, gleaning great Silent Auction items, training new volunteers. The Field Trip Chair Mary Gustafson is in Mazatlan.
Wait…what?
Actually, she’s in Mazatlan working (in conjunction with her positions in the American Bird Conservancy and the Joint Venture, both of which do amazing work throughout Mexico and the Americas. She’ll be back soon, and then she’ll be deep into scheduling leaders, verifying trip site logistics, coordinating the eBird interface.
And all the other vital RGVBF volunteers are scurrying just as speedily.
Those of us that work the RGVBF love this Festival, and work our little tail feathers off year-round. Our first priority is our participants – so Jane from Iowa and Donald from Canada will have the best birding experience here in the Valley we can give them.
But we’re also aware that we’re an integral ingredient in a Big Picture. That the RGV Birding Festival is a fostering core of South Texas nature tourism, and that tourism brings in millions (yes, I said millions) annually into our economy, and those millions have hydra-headed positive effects on so many needy levels.
We’re talking 300 million per year. The study was just done, and the information is just out. Read for yourself:
Economic Impact of Nature Tourism on the Rio Grande Valley
The second part of this important two-part study by Texas A&M will be conducted during this year’s RGVBF. So if you’re joining us, you will be part of it all!
Sep
08
Right-brained at the RGVBF
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Since man first picked up a burnt stick and scratched an image on the nearest rock, art depicting the natural world has been an extension of our existence.
In the depictions of animals and birds and flowers, Science and Art have merged through the ages in a wonderful way. Some of today’s finest bird and nature artists have produced the eighteen years of original artwork for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.
This year, we noticed that a great concentration of artists would be joining us at the 2011 Festival, in various capacities. It sort of reminds me of this famous painting by Impressionist Henri Fantin-Latour, a group portrait of a bunch of famous artists of his day:
Let’s update that, and makes it ours:
Who are these gathered artists? Well, there’s Debby Kaspari, this year’s festival artist featuring a stunning Red-billed Pigeons, illustrator of the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago and author of Drawing the Mot-Mot:
There’s Sophie Webb, illustrator of the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America and Marine Mammals of the Pacific Coast and a line of children’s books, too:
And there’s F.P. Tony Bennett, the Valley’s own painter of tropical birds, hummingbird expert for the Birds of Peru:
Also, Michael O’Brien, esteemed contributor to the Peterson Field Guide series and author of a number of landmark books:
Last, but not least, Louise Zemaitis, artist for Birdwatcher’s Digest and Birding, International Migratory Bird Day, plus a variety of books and wearable art:
Why am I telling you all this? Because all these artists and more will be gathered in an innovative new seminar during the November event – the Artists Panel. Moderated by Louise Zemaitis, this will be a fascinating peek into the right-brain-side of these creative people. A rare opportunity.
Offered for only $7 on Thursday, 10 November at 1:30p in the Harlingen Municipal Auditorium, festival headquarters.
Aug
16
BIRDING with BINnS TIPS
Posted by: | CommentsMAKING the RIO GRANDE VALLEY BIRDING FESTIVAL YOUR BEST EXPERIENCE
by Adrian Binns, 
Birding festivals offer wonderful, unexpected opportunities to be engaged, inspired and enlightened. The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival (RGVBF) is among the best—combining specialty birds, excellent leaders and superior organizers all in one location. This year’s RGVBF guarantees an incredible experience at every level, from field trips to workshops to evening socials. TheRio GrandeValleyis one of the premier birding locations in the world, and if you can only attend one festival, this should be a top choice! Whether you are a brand new birder, or a seasoned lister, I invite you to register now for the 2011 Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, November 9-13. Don’t miss out on one of the most delightful experiences in the birding community!
Following are tips that are guaranteed to enhance your experience at the RGVBF:
1) SIGN UP EARLY AND SIGN UP OFTEN, FOR AS MANY ACTIVITIES AS POSSIBLE.
The RGVBF offers an extraordinary number and diversity of field trips, workshops, programs and speakers. There is something for every skill level, pace, and interest. Knowledgeable, expert leaders guide field trips to all the local hotspots, knowing what to look for and how to find it. The indoor presentations and workshops provide valuable enhancement to the paramount field trips. A full day of activities leads to great satisfaction at the end of the festival. It’s no fun sitting in the hotel alone, with little to contribute at the end of the day when meeting-up to recap the day’s experiences over dinner. Sign-up to visit a new location, or learn something you know nothing about. And sign-up early, as popular events fill quickly!
2) BRING A FRIEND OR BIRDING BUDDY.
It’s fun to share new experiences with a friend, especially when it involves the opportunity to see the many specialties of theRio GrandeValley! Few people can relate to such excitement as birding buddies, and they make great roommates, traveling companions, and dinner mates throughout the festival.
3) PERUSE THE FIELD GUIDE IN ADVANCE.
The more you know about the birds before you arrive, the better prepared you will be to enjoy them in the field. Even if
you are not inclined to serious study, you’ll find that spending a few hours perusing the field guide will give you a good idea of what to expect, including the unexpected! You may not be a hard core lister, but this location offers a good reason to consider making a list of target birds – like the resident, specialty Buff-bellied Hummingbird – since many species can only be found here in the Rio GrandeValleyregion of theU.S.
4) SAY HELLO TO A STRANGER.
Hospitality is big inTexas, like most everything else, and the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival is no exception! RGVBF Festival organizers and leaders are extremely friendly people. They are fun, enthusiastic, and committed to making a top-notch birding experience for all the participants. Don’t be shy. Introduce yourself to leaders and other participants. You may click with someone who becomes a lifelong friend!
5) SUPPORT FESTIVAL VENDORS.
To round out your Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival experience, spend some time visiting the vendors in the trade show booths. Exhibitors from all backgrounds—birding gear suppliers, travel companies, optics dealers, booksellers, environmental conservation groups, clubs, photographers, and artists—will offer an interesting variety of the latest innovations, as well as some great sales deals! Pay attention to the sponsors listings—these companies care and deserve our support—and also, don’t forget the Silent Auction offerings—another place to score a great deal!
Whether he is leading birding trips around the globe or presenting programs to local clubs, Adrian brings passion, enthusiasm and humor to all experiences. Raised in Morocco and educated in England, Adrian’s diverse background and interests led him to southeastern Pennsylvania where he worked in ecological landscape design and began leading eco-tours for a variety of organizations. Now the Field Director for Wildside Nature Tours, Adrian leads groups to experience birds and other wildlife in many different countries. Adrian has served as past president of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC), one of the oldest bird clubs in the country, and was part of many winning Nikon/DVOC World Series of Birding Teams. He is currently a member of Nikon’s Birding ProStaff. Adrian is an accomplished avian illustrator and well-published photographer, as well as a popular speaker and field trip leader at birding festivals.
–For more great tips, visit Birding with BINnS
And stay tuned: closer to the November event, we’ll post Adrian’s terrific and timely in-the-field tips! Also: don’t miss Adrian’s sure-to-be-entertaining Friday 11Nov afternoon seminar, Tales with Tails.
all photos © adrian binns
Jun
23
As Smooth as RBPI Feathers
Posted by: | Comments–that’s how our first days of Registration are going. Record early numbers are filling up the special trips.
Which trips are special? All of them! Hey, it’s THE Valley! It’s the place where Green Jays gangs shout from mesquites, where Caracaras mix with the TV’s, where Buffies (Buff-bellied Hummingbirds) lord over the yard feeders and beds of native Turk’s Cap.
Photo Credits: Laura Kammermeier, Kevin Karlson, Richard Crossley. Thanks guys!
If you haven’t birded the Valley before, the birds here are all the incentive one needs. If you have been before, there are plenty reasons to return! Come back and catch those birds you’ve missed. Attend one of the most famous festivals of its kind. Take a field trip with a leader that wrote that favorite dog-eared guide of yours. Enjoy the unique keynotes. Revel in our sun and palms and affordable Tex-mex hospitality.
For suggestions on RGVBF trips to take for those that have been before, and also for suggestions for beginners or those that need less walking or other categories, visit the website’s Field Trip Page and scroll down.
It’s all too great to miss. And easy. Fly right into Harlingen’s airport, 15 minutes from the Festival site, on Southwest or Continental. And there’s some good airfares out there right now…just sayin’…
Mar
29
RGVBF T-Shirt Announcement
Posted by: | CommentsDo you remember the Odd Couple-styled muppets, Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street?
I loved that both Bert and Ernie were birdwatchers. Yes, they really were. Bert had a particular affinity for a certain family of birds–pigeons! He even had a pigeon dance he did…he called it, “Doing the Pigeon”.
I like to imagine that Bert was not only singing about the local Rock Pigeons of Sesame Street but that he was knowledgeable about the world’s many species of pigeons. I fantasize about him visiting the Lower Rio Grande Valley to come see our very own specialty pigeon, the Red-billed Pigeon!
Unlike city pigeons, the Red-billed Pigeons are always beautiful birds and never bothersome. They live in riparian habitats and can be wary and often hard to see. In fact, they are one of the less-frequently seen Valley specialties on our field trips. Still, there’s always a chance, and with their limited range in the USA, Red-billed Pigeons are one of the birds that makes the Rio Grande Valley such an intriguing destination for birdwatching. We at the RGV Birding Festival want the world to know they are here. “How will we do that?,” you ask.
Drum roll please…….
The 18th annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival T-shirt will feature a pair of red-billed pigeons surrounded by lovely anacua leaves and berries. This year’s art has been designed for us by the award-winning artist Debby Kaspari. Ta da!
Debby Kaspari draws and paints birds from life, traveling around the world with her sketchbooks and binoculars. Her illustrations are featured in the upcoming Field Guide to Birds of Trinidad and Tobago (Cornell University) and Drawing and Painting Birds (Crowood Press). Her paintings have been shown in the Woodson Museum’s Birds in Art and the Society of Animal Artist’s Art and the Animal and she is a long-time contributor to Birdwatcher’s Digest.
Debby lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with her husband, tropical ecologist and Oklahoma University professor Mike Kaspari. Her award-nominated blog can be found here: Drawing the Motmot
Join, Debby, Bert, and all of us at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival this year in “Doing the Pigeon”!
–Liz Gordon, Art and Souvenir Committee
Feb
22
RGV BIRDING FESTIVAL IS JALAPENO-HOT!
Posted by: | CommentsWhat goes on with the red-shirted RGVBF Staff folk in between Novembers? We do stuff. We have Giving Back projects (like wild parrot/parakeet habitat). We have meetings (currently fine-tuning the upcoming event). And we have fun.
Heres a dose of our fun. The Jalapeno 100 bike ride is held in the Harlingen vicinity every February the 21st annual this year. Hundreds of bikers from everywhere participate, and a number of rest/water stops are set up along the routes. The RGVBF has a great history of getting involved, sponsoring one of the stops.
And O Happy Day! This year the date of the bike ride coincided with the Great Backyard Bird Count, so our staffers could be seen adroitly handing out muffins and protein balls and Gatorade whilst yelling out, 4 Least Grebes! 12 Neotropical Cormorants! 3 Kiskadees! (Rest Stop #4 was serendipitously situated near a marshy resaca). Heres the spread (before the bikers descended!) and in the background bird counters Norma and Joyce and Sue working the marsh.
But then our reason-for-being kicked in. The first bikers, the out-in-front-of-the-pack ones, got personal service:
And then the hordes reached us. Eek! Just like a flock of red-wings, cleaning us out:
If youre familiar with the Festival historically, then you know or know of Father Tom Pincelli, RGVBF President for its first fifteen years. Whats he doing these days? Well, hes still a priest, and a biker. Here he is, awaiting one of Rest Stop #4s amenities (the one on the right):
Overall, a fun and fruitful day biker-wise and bird-wise. Heres the hard-working gang, left to right:
Gene Hanvy, Trade Show / Marci Fuller, Chair / Sue Griffin, Trade Show Chair / Erny Colunga, Technical Chair / Fran Wolpin, Sponsorships / Norma Friedrich, Secretary and Silent Auction Chair / Joyce Hamilton, Education / Lupita Lucio, Souvenir Chair and Kiskadee Kordial / Stan Sterba, Trade Show / Susan Hoehne, Education Chair/ Danny Hoehne, President / Billy Snider, Stage Decoration / David Schibi, Transportation Chair. Not pictured: Bob Binney, Field Trips, and one of the main Jal100 organizers, and Kenny Salazar, Website Chair and Chronicler.
Thank you all! You are one sizzlin great group!
–Marci Fuller, Chair
Jan
19
TESTIMONIALS from RGVBF 2010 PARTICIPANTS
Posted by: | CommentsHeaded from Florida for my first trip out to the Texas Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. Wow what a trip! The festival had some excellent field trips which kept me birding from sun up to sun down. Over the course of five days, I was blessed to add 40 new birds to my life list and saw well over 110 species. It was an awesome time with pictures to share with friends and family when I got back home. Can’t wait to go back again.
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Best organized Festival Ive been to. Terrific job by everyone!
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It was the best bird festival I have ever attended. King Ranch was great, Jon Dunn was great, boat trip was great, raptor banding was great. The field trips could not have been better.
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Look forward to attending every year!
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Some key finds were the Eastern Screech Owl, Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, Green Jay, Greater Roadrunner, Clay-Colored Thrush, Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, Golden Fronted Woodpecker, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Green Kingfisher, Altamira Oriole, Vermilion Flycatcher and two very unusual visitors to the area, the Crimson-collared Grosbeak and the Ruddy ground-Dove, to name a few. If I have to pick a favorite or two I would say it was the Greater Roadrunner and Green Jay. If you have never been to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival it’s a must do trip. Hope to see you there next year!
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Congrats for putting on yet another great festival. It’s hard to describe how much I enjoyed it, but if my post-festival disorientation is any indication, it was a rockin’ fest.
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Awsome fest. Absolutely ace. MASSIVE CHEERS to the entire gang that puts together RGVBF in brilliant fashion. Had a load of fun and incredible birds on the tours and at the convention hall. Hands down the single best bird fest experience in the states. My second year and definitely not the last.
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Wonderful Festival!! Many thanks for all the hard work you all did. See you next year!
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This was my first RGV Festival and I could not have been more impressed. You did a great job with trips and leaders.
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Great festival…tallied at least 20+ species of dragonflies, 40+ species of butterflies, three lifebirds and a great look at bobcat. Thank you organizers and volunteers!
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Had a wonderful time.43 life birds.
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Great trip leaders. Good birding. Gave me a nice intro to the area.
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We didn’t leave until the following week, and I didn’t want to leave at all. Your festival is by far my favorite! This year we brought friends with us and I hope to do the same in 2011. I think every birder needs to see the Rio Grande Valley and the BEST way to do it is during the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival — fantastic field trips to incomparable destinations with the best leaders!
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I tell everyone its the BEST birding festival. Everyone I met was full of information and goodwill. The Game Show night was FUN. Keep it going!
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I have attended this Festival many times and will be returning for many years to come.
Dec
09
HIGHLIGHTING THE 2010 RGVBF
Posted by: | CommentsLetting pictures tell the story…
Registration opens. Meet Sally, Kasey, Marci, Kenny, Norma – all staffers:
Find the right van or bus, and meet the Fest President Danny Hoehne:
Field trips to famous places with topnotch leaders:
Great birds seen – Valley specialties and rare visitors: Kiskadee during Banding Demonstration trip, plus Ruddy Ground-Dove at Estero Llano Grande and Crimson-collared Grosbeak at Frontera Audubon:
The New Butterfly trips had everyone going buggy:
Back at the Festival site – lots to do! Shopping at the Birder’s Bazaar:
Got birds? The Raptor Project is on-site:
A wealth of talks and workshops by movers and shakers:
Reaching our youth for nearly two decades:
The Student Art Contest:
And the crowning highlight – Eagle Optics’ Saturday night Keynote Quiz Show with Jeff Gordon:
Going home with smiles (and larger lifelists!)
Nov
05
