Join Jon Dunn, a leading expert on the identification and distribution of North American birds, for a birding tour of Galveston Island. Jon co-authored the sixth and seventh editions of National Geographic Society’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America. He was the Chief Consultant/Editor for the first five editions. He is the co-writer and host of the two-video set Large and Small Gulls of North America, as well as co-author (with Kimball Garrett) of Birds of Southern California: Status and Distribution and the Peterson Field Guide to Warblers. Jon is a member of the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists’ Society and has served some 30 years on the California Bird Records Committee. He has also been on the Board of Directors for Western Field Ornithologists for over a decade.
Get ready to see the full avian diversity Galveston Island has to offer with one of the premier birding experts in the country! This trip promises to be a fun-filled way to begin the festival, with destinations possible anywhere along the full length of the island. Jon will decide the itinerary on the fly, based on his scouting expeditions in the days prior. You’ll have the opportunity to check out some of Galveston’s best birding hotspots, with exact locations determined by where the most desirable birds are being seen. Potential sites include Corps Woods, East End Lagoon and Flats, Lafitte’s Cove Nature Preserve, Sportsman and Settegast Roads, Dos Vacas Muertes Bird Sanctuary, and San Luis Pass.
A variety of barrier island habitats will be covered on this trip, including sandy beach, mudflat, lagoon, estuarial saltmarsh, coastal prairie, oak motte, scrub, and freshwater ponds. These wide-ranging habitats are attractive to an extensive array of species, and you never know what will show up during spring migration – the sky is the limit!
Bring: water, lunch, sunscreen, insect repellent
