Cedar discovered birding as a kid growing up in the Adirondack mountains of New York State, surrounded by fields and forests and a wealth of breeding birds. In high school, he did extensive volunteer field work for the second Breeding Bird Atlas. After taking a break from serious birding for a number of years to pursue music, Cedar rediscovered the joy of birding and became a serious lister in 2012. For the last decade, he’s been birding all over North America and beyond, leading field trips at bird festivals and for the local Audubon group where he lives in southern Vermont.
Galveston Birding and Nature Photo Festival
Cedar Stanistreet
Upcoming Events
April 2025
Boy Scout Woods, Smith Oaks, The Rookery, and more! From under an ancient sea, a salt dome emerged. After a few thousand years the dome reached 38-feet above a pancake-flat coastal plain; the highest point-of-land on the immediate coast from Mobile Bay to the Yucatan Peninsula. This is High Island, which is now a wooded beacon amongst the coastal marshland providing food, water, and places to rest for weary Gulf migrants. The daily afternoon arrival of neotropic migrants often includes…
Find out more »Focusing on discovering migrating songbirds on Galveston’s West End, this trip will feature warblers, vireos, tanagers, orioles, grosbeaks, and buntings. Located at the intersection of two important migratory flyways, Galveston Island provides critical resources and cover for birds as they journey northward. During stormy weather, fallout events are common, as birds seek shelter and much-needed rest at the first sight of land. Our first stop will be at Lafitte’s Cove Nature Preserve, Galveston’s crown jewel during spring migration. We will…
Find out more »Back by popular demand, for this trip, you will be guided by one of our most experienced birders and all-around nature lover, Glenn Olsen. Glenn leads nature tours in the US and overseas but he calls the upper Texas coast home. His extensive knowledge of local birding areas is sure to yield excellent views of migrating warblers as they move through our area on their way to nesting habitat. As a bonus, Glenn is also a Texas Master Naturalist and has served as the president of the Native Plant Society of Texas. His knowledge in these areas should greatly enhance your trip experience. Our group will focus on techniques for improving field identification skills. We will be traveling by bus and places visited will depend on weather patterns and reports from the previous day’s birding activities.
Find out more »Focusing on discovering migrating songbirds on Galveston’s West End, this trip will feature warblers, vireos, tanagers, orioles, grosbeaks, and buntings. Located at the intersection of two important migratory flyways, Galveston Island provides critical resources and cover for birds as they journey northward. During stormy weather, fallout events are common, as birds seek shelter and much-needed rest at the first sight of land. Our first stop will be at Lafitte’s Cove Nature Preserve, Galveston’s crown jewel during spring migration. We will…
Find out more »Galveston’s West End has drawn birders from all over the world for nearly 100 years. In addition to estuarial saltwater marsh, it contains freshwater ponds, pockets of scrubland, mudflats, and sandy beach habitat. This combination attracts a wide variety of shorebirds, waterfowl, raptors, songbirds, and more. We will begin the trip by viewing tidal pools on the Gulf of Mexico side and work our way to the estuaries on the edge of West Bay, stopping at freshwater ponds along the…
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