The 7th Annual Laredo Birding Festival (LBF), which runs from February 6th through the 9th, kicks off with the Birds of the Brush Art Contest. Last year’s contest drew over 400 students and local artists with renderings of birds known to inhabit or migrate through Laredo and surrounding areas.
The exhibit opens Wednesday, February 6, at 6:30 p.m. at the Laredo Center for the Arts at 500 San Agustín Avenue. The public is invited to attend.
Registration for LBF7 — a collaboration between the City of Laredo’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, Monte Mucho Audubon, and the Río Grande International Study Center — begins on Thursday, February 7, at 5:30 a.m. in the lobby of La Posada, the host hotel for the LBF.
The diverse riparian ecosystems of Laredo and Webb and Zapata counties provide habitat for hundreds of species of local and migratory birds. Prized sightings include Morelet’s Seedeater (formerly known as the White-collared Seedeater), Scaled Quail, Gray Hawk, Audubon’s and Altamira orioles, Green Parakeets, Muscovy Duck, Red-billed Pigeon, and Clay-colored Thrush.
Birding field trips to area ranches in Webb and Zapata counties depart shortly thereafter and continue through the day and on Friday, February 8, and Saturday, February 9. A complete itinerary of local, ranch, and river outings is posted at http://www.laredobirdingfestival.org/trip-descriptions.html
All field trips are escorted by professional field guides and members of Monte Mucho Audubon Society who will help birders deepen their birding knowledge of South Texas and explore areas along Laredo’s riverfront, creek systems, nature trails, and private ranchland.
Jack Eitniear
Thursday’s events culminate with conservation biologist Jack Eitniear’s presentation on the Muscovy Duck at 7 p.m. in La Posada’s Tesoro Room. Eitniear has devoted his research over the last decade to Masked Ducks in Puerto Rico and wild Muscovy Ducks in the Upper Rio Grande Valley (Starr, Zapata and Webb counties). Eitniear has edited the Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society for the past two decades.
Lee Hoy
Lee Hoy, who will speak Friday, February 8, at 7 p.m., also in the Tesoro Room, is a professional photographer and the owner of Big Bend Birding & Photo Tours. His topic is “Death Marches, Tobacco Trees, & Windmills — Birding in Big Bend National Park.”
Hoy lives at 6,100 feet in the Davis Mountains where he photographs the wildlife and scenery of the Big Bend National Park region.
Jeffrey Gordon, president of the American Birding Association (ABA), which was founded in Texas 50 years ago, keynotes the LBF banquet, Saturday, February 9, at American Legion Post 59 at 809 Zaragoza.
Jeff Gordon
Gordon will speak about the ABA’s first half-century, his own 40+ years as a birder, and the power of birding to heal and transform not only lives. but also the world.
Banquet tickets are $30 each.
According to RGISC project coordinator Erika Saenz, early registration for LBF7 has been brisk and to near capacity. She can be reached at (956) 718-1063 or erika@rgisc.org for further information and to determine tour availability.
