Big birding at Monterey Bay fest

The Monterey Bay Birding Festival is bursting its feathered bounds. The event, which took flight from a Red Roof Inn parking lot four years ago, has grown to encompass more than 70 workshops, lectures and field trips and to feature the authors of birding books, the compilers of Audubon bird counts, the writers of hundreds of scientific articles on birds, and the leaders of thousands of bird outings and lectures.

“We have assembled leaders and speakers of unmatched skill, experience and passion for birds,” said Dave Brockmann, member of the festival organizing committee, by e-mail.

What may be nicest about this festival, which will be held Sept. 26 to 28, is that it caters to the newly hatched birder, the individual who doesn’t know a common murre from a killdeer. Various workshops and field trips are targeted specifically to beginners, Brockmann said.

Also a lure: tramping around amid beautiful California scenery.

Participants can see “a variety of habitats like no others in the world,” Brockmann said, “redwood forests, rocky shorelines, sandy beaches, oak forests, Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, pelagic trips on the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and grasslands at Pinnacles National Monument.”

Hundreds of species of birds have been seen in the Monterey Bay area, and fall is peak time for seeing them, he noted. Seabirds from the Northern and Southern hemispheres visit Monterey Bay in autumn, and land birds are at the peak of their southward migration. With the annual movement, bird populations rocket, creating an amazing, diverse mix of birds.

To register for the birding fest, go online at www.montereybaybirding.org. For information, call (831) 724-3900, or e-mail montereybaybirding@hotmail.com.

– Amy Hubbard, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photos, from left: Monterey Bay birders by Santa Cruz County CVC; peregrine falcon by Clay Kempf / Santa Cruz County CVC; Forster's tern by Clay Kempf / Santa Cruz County CVC]

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 11, 2008 at 4:37 pm by Amy Hubbard and is filed under California, Fall, Festival, Monterey Peninsula, Outdoors & Adventure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.