All About Birds

The allure of birding: Apopka festival one step toward drawing eco-tourists

"It's never dull out here," said Bob Stamps, 63, a professor at the University of Florida's Mid-Florida Research & Education Center who will serve as a birding tour guide this weekend at the first Old Florida Outdoor Festival in Apopka.

"There's always a surprise. See! There!" Stamps trained his binoculars at a pair of perching bald eagles as black-plumed coots and a family of wigeons paddled in the water and a red-shouldered hawk circled above.

The idea for Apopka's event — now one of three festivals in Central Florida aimed at birders and eco-tourists — was hatched from the million-dollar success of the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville, which offers sightseeing day trips to Lake Apopka.

The Apopka festival is offering other outdoor events in its first year to appeal to a broader audience, but it's the birding business that the city really wants to develop, said Apopka's chief administrative officer, Richard Anderson.

Birders, often toting expensive binoculars and spotting scopes, seek out various species, usually keeping lists that catalog their sightings. It's a pastime that traces its origins to John James Audubon, namesake of the famous bird conservancy. To some, they may seem like odd ducks, venturing into remote areas and patiently waiting to catch a glimpse of a species they haven't seen before.

Source: Orlando Sentinel

Young Birder of the Year Honored with Roger Tory Peterson App and ...

Ms. Butek, a homeschool graduate from Colfax, Wisconsin, completed seven months of competition time ABA is in first place in two of the four categories of competition. A second and third position in the two remaining categories gave her the overall win and the title Young birder of the Year.

The ABA Young birder of the Year competition is an annual competition that tests the ingenuity of ornithologists, aged between 10 and 18 years. Participants submit entries in four modules of the field notebook, writing, illustration and photography.Entries are judged by a team of volunteers this year included birding birding noted author David Sibley, Laura Kammermeier nature writer, and director of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt guides Publishing Company Lisa Bianco.

"We are 100% behind the push to encourage ABA birders young and when we heard Rachael Young birder had won the competition of the year, we knew we had to find a way to recognize his achievement," said Nigel Hall, President , Appweavers."The iPad is like an amazing tool for ornithologists, and our full adaptation of Roger Tory Peterson's classic Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America looks amazing on the device....

Read more...

News

Luna: big, beautiful moth

Columbus Dispatch - Dec 31, 1969

A wonderful new moth book has just emerged: the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $29) by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie. It covers almost all of the species that one could expect to find in Ohio

Birding In The National Parks: Grab A Field Guide, There Are Many!

National Parks Traveler - Dec 31, 1969

Peterson uses paintings of the birds and arrows pointing to relevant field marks. The Peterson guide series has also produced some specialized volumes like Hawks of North America, Hummingbirds of North America, and the 656-page Warblers.

11 Amazing Facts About Moths (PHOTOS)

Huffington Post (blog) - Dec 31, 1969

When Seabrooke Leckie and I decided to write the new Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America it was very much with the beginner in mind. We wanted to produce a guide that concentrated on the most likely species to be encountered and

JOAN CARSON | How do you tell finches apart?

Kitsap Sun - Dec 31, 1969

Not only could he bring to mind the details of the birds he painted but he had the perfect eye for color. These attributes are gifts all birdwatchers wish we had. I don't, and for that reason, field guides like those Peterson wrote and illustrated are

Chautauqua in June Learning Festival Showcases Western New York's Historic and ...

Houston Chronicle - Dec 31, 1969

Greg's attempt to set a new record for the most bird sightings in North America within a single year was the inspiration for the book, "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession" by Mark Obmascik and a 2011 movie directed by David Frankel