TexasTripper Travel Blog

12th Annual Whooping Crane Event Nears

Port Aransas will soon be welcoming the whooping cranes (which this year number 261!) with the 12th Annual Celebration of Whooping Cranes & Other Birds. If you've never been to the coast to see this magnificent, five-foot-tall birds, it's really an amazing sight and one that birders from around the world come to view.

Dates: This year's event is scheduled for February 22-24, 2008.

Festival Events: This year's festival will include:

• workshops and field trips for birding and photography
• tours of the Animal Rehabilitation Keep (ARK)
• boat trips to see the Whooping Cranes at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge
• concessions at the Bird’s Nest Bistro
• a free nature-related trade show at the Civic Center
• the ICF’s International Children’s Art Exhibit on display at the Art Center for the Islands
• the ‘Wetlands on Wheels’ traveling educational bus, which will be parked at the Civic Center all weekend.

You can also buy a chance to win everything from binoculars and tripods to backpacks from sponsors Eagle Optics and Swarovski Optik. Fennessey Ranch has donated a day of birding and copies of 2008’s Wildlife in Focus book that will be raffled off as well. Additional sponsors include H-E-B and the Port of Corpus Christi.

New Events: This year includes new events: workshops by award winning photographer Sean Fitzgerald, insight into butterfly behavior by Texas Parks and Wildlife’s statewide invertebrate Biologist Mike Quinn, and the chance to see the largest migrating flock of whooping cranes ever.

Early Registation: They're expecting some of these events to fill up so early registration is encourage; the deadline for early registration is Friday, February 15, 2008.

For more about the annual event, see the TexasTripper festival listing for Celebration of Whooping Cranes & Other Birds.

Photo courtesy Mike Sloat

Labels: Festivals, Gulf Coast

posted by Paris & John @ 3:37 PM