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Birding in the National Parks

4th Annual Indiana Dunes Birding Festival Set For May

Celebrate the migration of birdlife through the Indiana Dunes region on May 17-20 at the Fourth Annual Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. The festival is a partnership of the region’s major environmental groups highlighting the dunes area’s rich biodiversity and bird watching opportunities to create a positive impact on the economic, conservation, and environmental education for visitors and residents to the Indiana Dunes region

Birding In The National Parks: Counting Birds At Point Pelee National Park

Back in 2014 I regaled Traveler readers with a report from Canada’s Point Pelee National Park during spring migration. This month, I’m back to remind you that good spring spots are often just as good or better in the fall. I felt a little guilty crossing the border for a national park trip during this centennial celebration, but I think our friends to the north deserve a tip of the hat. Parks Canada celebrated its 115th birthday in May, making it a somewhat older sibling to our National Park Service.

Birding In The National Parks: Looking For Birds And Encountering Bears

There are good times to go birding in Eastern forests and times that are less than ideal. I won’t say the birding is ever “bad,” because even if there aren’t any birds, a walk in the woods is never a bad thing. Still, if seeing tons of birds and hearing beautiful songs is on your agenda, avoid August. Head to the beaches to see shorebird migration.

Birding In The National Parks: Don't Let The Dog Days Of Summer Discourage You

The dog days of summer are upon us and the birding is slow in most parts of the country. While summer breeding season has ended in many areas, fall migration for songbirds is still at least a couple weeks away. Still, there’s good birding to be had during these popular vacation times in the national parks.

Birding In The National Parks: Finding Birds With The National Park Service's Help

Proper preparation often makes the difference between merely seeing some good birds and coming home with a trip list bursting at the seams and a few lifers to boot. It’s easy to enjoy a birding trip without studying your field guides and knowing your geography, but to many birders the prep is half the fun.

Birding In The National Parks: Looking For Loons

With spring migration over and fall shorebird migration a couple weeks away, this is the lazy part of the birding year. It’s time to float placidly on a northern lake and listen to the loons. Everyone from Henry David Thoreau to Aldo Leopold has tried to describe the song of the loon, all failing miserably compared to the experience of actually hearing it on a foggy dawn.

Birding In The National Parks: Great Parking Lot Shots!

As a birder and naturalist, I have a love/hate relationship with roads and parking lots in national parks. On the one hand, it’s not difficult to agree with Ed Abbey that all pavement is the opposite of progress. Roads kill things outright and bring more tourists, a certain percentage of which will be destructive in their own way. Then I stop and think about the best birding spots I’ve found in the parks – and a majority of them of were either in a parking lot or within sight of some kind of pavement.

Birding In The National Parks: Plan Now To Attend Hawai'i Island Birding Festival

I usually quit dreaming of tropical birding trips once May arrives. The onslaught of warblers, tanagers, and flycatchers makes my regular haunts on the Great Lakes the envy of the birders who actually are in the tropics. Still, when I hear the words Hawai’i, birds, and festival in one sentence, I stop to listen.

Birding In The National Parks: An Early Spring Cacophony At Congaree National Park

What does a birder do when the wait for the peak of spring migration is just taking too darned long? One option is to head south. Early April is a great time to visit the parks of the southeast for a little bit of the warbler action that won’t get to the north until May. Florida is certainly one option, but for a little more seclusion with plenty of songbirds, Congaree National Park in South Carolina is the place to be.

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