Thousands of miles away, in the jungles of Central America, the forests of South America, and on the islands in the Caribbean, wings are flapping, songs are filling the air, and diets are rich in the protein needed for an upcoming endurance test.
By the millions, the warblers and other species will be coming in a few months to a woodlot, marsh, Metropark, or meadow near you. Once the holidays are in the rearview mirror and the calendar flips to a new year, the buzz over the upcoming spring migration begins to build.
Black Swamp Bird Observatory will host “The Biggest Week in American Birding” May 5 to 14, and if the history of the event tells us anything, it is that the “bigger and better” trend will continue.
The festival, which has experienced significant growth over the past decade, except for the unwelcome interlude forced on the event by the pandemic, has spawned a robust second tourism season along the Lake Erie shoreline. Conservative estimates put the number of visitors to the region who come primarily to observe the spring migration phenomenon over the month of May at around 90,000.
The economic impact of those visitors — hotel rooms booked, restaurant stops, fuel sales, and tickets sold to the zoo, museums, and amusement parks — is estimated at around $40 million.
The tourists primarily come to see the colorful and melodic warblers, some as tiny as a man's thumb, that makes this region an important oasis on their long migratory journeys across the hemisphere. There are Blackburnian warblers, Magnolia warblers, Prothonotary Warblers, Canada warblers, and the rare Kirtland’s warbler that are joined in this spring extravaganza by thrushes, vireos, flycatchers, orioles, and migrating shorebirds.
The Biggest Week festival was hatched by Black Swamp Bird Observatory to celebrate this region as “The Warbler Capital of the World.”
The spring songbird migration offers some of the best birding in North America, and the festival is designed to accommodate all levels of expertise, from beginners to seasoned birders with bird identification workshops, guided birding trips, birding by canoe, daily excursions along the iconic Magee Marsh boardwalk, and numerous keynote presentations by birding experts.
Premier level registration for the 2023 festival opens at noon on Feb. 15, with premier registrants getting the first opportunity to claim a coveted place in the many field trips, seminars, tours, and workshops. The premier registration fee is $55 for BSBO members, $75 for non-members, and $10 for students ages 9-18.
General registration opens at noon on Feb. 17 and costs $35 for BSBO members and $55 for non-members.
Besides a wide array of guided birding tours all across the region and educational workshops, the festival will offer nine keynote addresses over the course of the event, delivered by some of the leading experts in the birding world.
Alyssa Bardy, a photographer and a member of the Upper Cayuga from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, will speak on “Indigenous People and Birds.” Laura Erickson, whose “For the Birds” podcast started in 1986 and is the longest continually-running radio program about birds in the U.S., will speak on “Plants to Feed the Birds.”
Cin-Ty Lee, a professor of geology at Rice University and an avid birder, will join Andrew Birch, an accomplished illustrator, to talk about flycatchers. They collaborated to produce the Field Guide to North American Flycatchers.
Erin Lehnert, Condor Program Crew Leader at Pinnacles National Park in central California, will share her extensive knowledge of the critically endangered California condor.
London native David Lindo, a broadcaster, writer, naturalist, photographer, public speaker, tour leader, and the author of The Urban Birder will speak on his celebrated books on birding anywhere, anytime.
Biologist John Kricher and photographer Kevin Loughlin, authors of Galápagos: A Natural History, will offer their perspectives on
the unique array of plant and animal life on these remote islands in an address entitled “Galápagos Islands: Darwin's Smoking Gun.”
Cancer survivor Holly Merker will speak on mindful birdwatching – “Ornitherapy” – which she believes helped save her life. “The History of Magee Marsh” will be the subject when longtime Ohio wildlife biologist and BSBO's director of research Mark Shieldcastle takes to the podium.
Scott Whittle, co-founder of the Terra Project, author, and bird expert, will speak on “How Birders and Technology will save Wildlife.”
Additional information on the Biggest Week in American Birding festival, registration, volunteer opportunities, and more on BSBO's education and conservation work is available at the bsbo.org website.
First Published January 17, 2023, 7:25 p.m.
