2010 Winter Wings Festival Highlights

Among the many highlights of this year’s Winter Wings Festival were: a keynote presentation focusing on the wonders of migration by Scott Weidensaul, author of Living on the Wind and over two dozen other books on natural history; a celebrity birding day with William Clark, renowned raptor expert; a count of over 130 Bald Eagles leaving their night roost in the Bear Valley National Wildlife Refuge during the flyout field trip on Sunday--a high count for recent years.

As an eBird festival, all field trip checklists from Winter Wings 2010 were entered into Klamath-Siskiyou eBird. At the eBird booth, new users were signed up and trained in eBird's features, and eBird data were displayed live for festival participants to explore. 93 species and tens of thousands of individual birds were recorded over the three days. As usual, raptors and waterfowl stole the show. Other notable highlights included:

- Western and Clark's Grebes
- American White Pelican
- Eurasian Wigeon (many)
- Northern Goshawk
- Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk (juvenile light morph; identified by Bill Clark)
- Peregrine Falcon
- Loggerhead Shrike
- Barn Owl
- Short-eared Owls (putting on a show in the evening at the Lower   Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge auto tour route)
- Tree Swallow
- Rock and Canyon Wrens
- California Towhee
- Cassin's Finch

A. eBird summary of 2010 Winter Wings observations is now posted on the Winter Wings website:

http://www.winterwingsfest.org/

We'd like to thank Winter Wings’ title sponsor Pacific Power, our host, the Oregon Institute of Technology, all of the presenters, leaders, sponsors, vendors, and, last but certainly not least, the nearly 100 volunteers that made it all happen. With field trips and activities again planned for a full 3 days during the 2011 festival, we hope you'll join us in observing and recording the diversity and abundance of bird life in the Klamath Basin of Oregon and California!