The Everglades Birding Festival

08/04/2024

David Bernstein came down from N.J. for SUMMER BIRDING and got 18 life birds bringing him to 476. Summer birding can get you alot of the birds you are looking for in South Florida without those pesky wintering birds and migrants.

07/27/2024

Kate Graham and Brett Haber of EBF 2024 attended the Mountain Institute of Lifelong Learning at Warren Wilson College for Event Coordinator Paddy Cunningham's Ascend to Better Birding weekend long class.

05/09/2024

Real and implied birds.
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05/09/2024

NEW DATES for 2025 Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Jan 16-20, 2025

04/03/2024

Camera.

04/02/2024

We're heading back to the Orchid Festival at the Bonnet House this weekend! Delectable jams and jellies; both traditional and tropical. Look for the orange tent. 🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼🪷🪻🎍🌻💐

We will also be taking names for next year's birding classes.

02/29/2024

March 3, 2024 Common Birds of South Florida-Wading and Backyard Birds, 2:00-4:30 pm, Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Learn to identify the common birds of south Florida, one of the TOP 10 birding destinations in the U.S. This class will focus on one of our specialties-Wading Birds. These birds commonly and easily seen everywhere on canal banks and wetlands, but all the white wading birds can be confusing. The class also focuses on commonly found birds in your yard and local parks. The class will include an informative power point, numerous hand outs and walk through the garden. Bring binoculars, and a field guide. Also, if possible, download the MERLIN app on your phone. CONTACT LINDA at (954) 563-5393 EXT 137. Cost $25 member, $30 non-members.

02/22/2024

Very excited to be a part of the Mountain Institute of Lifelong Learning held at Warren Wilson College along the Swannanoa River in the Appalachians near Asheville, North Carolina.
https://mountaininstitute.warren-wilson.edu/natural-science-writing-on-campus-courses/textiles-c2mzr-x4edb-bndw3-yr8cw

Ascend to Better Birding with give you field-tested strategies and new technologies such as MERLIN and ebird to improve your ability to find and identify birds. Gain knowledge of silhouette, abundance, habitat, bird behavior, birding by season, birding by ear, and MUCH more in this comprehensive course. In-depth studies of family groups such as hawks, wading birds, waterfowl, shorebirds, and warblers will explored, along with a daily bird walk to apply your new skills.

Peggy Baker says, "Bird watching class at Warren Wilson this summer. Instructed by the legendary Paddy Cunningham".
Kate Graham of NYU,
"I loved your strategy for learning birds. It is so nice not to think that memorizing field marks is the backbone of successful ID. So many online birding courses, even those in the Lab of O’s Bird Academy, are hard for me to get thorough because they mainly focus on field markings and I am terrible at that kind of memorization. You taught me that other factors, such as habitat, commonality, behavior, etc. are essential keys to success. While I did know about those, I had never formally put them into a strategy for ID. A big THANK YOU for making ID so much more than memorization. It is an immense help!"

Ascend to Better Birding with give you field tested strategies and new technologies such as MERLIN and ebird to improve your ability to find and identify birds. Gain knowledge of silhouette, abundance, habitat, bird behavior, birding by season, birding by ear, and MUCH more in this comprehensive cou

02/13/2024

01/15/2024

And that's a wrap for the 15th Annual Everglades Birding Festival. This was one of our best groups ever and we want to thank you for coming down. We hope to see some of you again next year. We want to thank our guides James, Nick, David and Jim for their help. And we are very sad to announce that, after 14 years of service, this was Jim's last EBF. Thank you Jim for the memories and for your service.

Next year's dates: January 16th to January 20th, 2025.

01/15/2024

The EBF has a special tradition every year in which we have an award ceremony at Everglades National Park and here are the winners this year.

01/15/2024

The Everglades Birding Festival Class of 2024

01/15/2024

The Everglades Birding Festival would like to thank our sponsors Brome - Squirrel Buster for sending us these amazing bird feeders and for sponsoring our festival! We gave away some of them as prizes for our birders.

01/14/2024

What a day! Everglades National Park appeared to be full of surprises today. Jennifer Jones and Nick Pascatore got their 400th life bird and we also got excellent looks at birds such as Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Tropical Kingbird, Eastern Meadowlark, Painted Bunting, Vermilion Flycatcher, White-tailed Kite, Northern Waterthrush, Short-tailed Hawk, and, after bravely fighting off ravenous mosquitoes at Flamingo, American Pipit, a new bird for our all-time list. We ended our day with a trip to Robert Is Here for their amazing milkshakes.

01/13/2024

Gotcha!! Jennifer Jones of Wichita, Kansas got her nemesis bird, a Yellow-headed Blackbird at Sem-chi Rice Mill outside of Belle Glade and celebrated with a little dance! Congratulations!

01/13/2024

We have 2 new birds added to our all-time list: Black Scoter and Surf Scoter

01/10/2024

Ladies and gentlemen, Registration for the 15th Annual Everglades Birding Festival is now closed. Thank you to everyone who signed up. Be sure to get plenty of rest and we will see you bright and early tomorrow morning.

01/06/2024

EVERGLADES BIRDING FESTIVAL is in it's last days of registration. Only the following trips are still open-BROWARD HOT SPOTS (😎, CORKSCREW (5) and UPPER KEYS (7)
MUST pay by ZELLE

This is how it’s supposed to be! This old surveyor map shows how water used to flow south from Lake Okechobee into the Everglades.

Credit: Flashback South Florida

01/04/2024

A bird we hope to see on the South Dade Hot Spots field trip. A few spots left.

01/01/2024

From our family to yours: Happy New Year 2024 🥰🎉

12/30/2023

SOUTH FLORIDA EXOTICS has been canceled. We will now add David Simpson's van to the STA and Palm Beach Wetlands trip.
Trip will includes at A1 Feb, Belle Glade Marina, Gladeview Road, Peaceful Water and any other lace we can squeeze in.
Photo by Jim Eager, Leader

12/27/2023

Have you ever tried to text someone about a bird you saw?

This is another comic from the past year. The real bird names are: Great Potoo, Dunlin, Garganey, Brambling, Pomarine Jaeger, and Sora.

12/27/2023

Be a bird nerd

12/24/2023

Everglades Birding Festival Guide Profile #4: Jim Eager from Obsessive Compulsive Birding.
Hometown: Cape Canaveral, Florida

Get to know Jim: After a 35 year career with BellSouth, Jim realized his dream of doing field work, after being selected as a raptor observer for the 2008 Florida Keys HawkWatch Project. As an Avian Field Technician, Jim has studied Bachman's Sparrows on the SE coastal plain of North Carolina, shorebirds/seabirds in east/central Florida and breeding songbirds in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Jim was also a co-founder and co-coordinator for the rebranded Florida Keys Hawkwatch at Curry Hammock State Park in the Middle Keys. Jim is the Social Media Coordinator and longtime field trip leader for the Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival as well as Social Media Coordinator for the Brevard Nature Alliance. In addition, Jim is a field trip leader for the Florida Birding and Nature Festival, Biggest Week in American Birding as well as a longtime field trip leader for the Everglades Birding Festival. Jim is a board member of the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS), Merritt Island Wildlife Association (MIWA) and Associate Editor (for bird distribution), FOS "Florida Field Naturalist". Jim also owns Obsessive Compulsive Birding specializing in guided trips in and around Central Florida.

12/24/2023

Everglades Birding Festival Guide Profile #3: David Simpson
Hometown: Fellsmere, Florida

Get to know David: David is one of Florida’s premier birders. A fanatical lister, he holds ABA records in Fl. Big Year (2nd), Fl. Life List (4th) and has identified at least 150 species of birds in all 67 Florida counties. David is also an avid eBirder, submitting over 5,000 complete checklists in Florida in 2015. He worked as a park ranger for over 12 years developing a deep knowledge of Florida’s environment.
David is a very popular leader at birding festivals including Space Coast Birding and Wildlife, Wings & Wildflowers, Birdapalooza, and more. David and his wife run a business providing environmental consulting, customized bird guiding, speaking engagements, and training for eBird, birding, and other subjects. David is also bringing back the Space Coast Birding Festival which will be happening next week.

12/22/2023

Everglades Birding Festival profile #2: James Pascatore - Field Trip co-Leader/Founder of Birding_Memes on iFunny
Hometown: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Get to know James: James is an exciting new intermediate-level birder whose love of birds has led him to train to be a field trip co-leader. He's excited to return for his 9th year as a co-leader of the Everglades Birding Festival. In 2012, James attempted a Big Year on the eastern coast of the U.S. and surpassed his goal of 300 species on New Year’s Eve. James has a current life list number of 403 and he continues his neverending quest for 500. He has been mentored by his Mom, Paddy Cunningham, but his ability to recall facts about birds lets him stand out on his own. For the past 9 years, James has kept a list of all of the birds he sees in his yard and claims that it's at around 50 species. James started the extremely popular Birding_Memes on iFunny in April of 2018, a page dedicated not only to ornithological humor, but also to his love for birding and to help connect other young people with birding and to encourage them to go birding. Other than birding, James is a fantastic writer and the CEO of Love Nest Kitchens, specializing in tropical and traditional jams and jellies.

12/22/2023

Everglades Birding Festival Guide #1: Paddy Cunningham - Expert Guide and Instructor
Hometown: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Get to know Paddy: Paddy Cunningham has been a Naturalist in South Florida for 35 years. Her passion is birds and she teaches a variety of bird classes to help birders gain advanced skills at numerous festivals, Bonnet House and Flamingo Gardens.
Her motto is “YOU LEARN THE I.D.”. Paddy’s company Birding Adventures takes small groups of birders throughout Florida, U.S. and the tropics - Jamaica, Bahamas and more. She calls her trips “INTENSE BIRDING at a RELAXED PACE.

She is the Coordinator of the Everglades Birding Festival in its 13th year. Paddy is a popular speaker and guide at Florida birding festivals-Big O, Fairchild Gardens, Wings & Wildflowers and the Everglades Birding Festival.

Despite being a Busy Mom and a full time Gifted Science Teacher in 2008 during a BIG YEAR she was 1st in Florida, 20th in the Lower 48 states and 27th overall for the A.B.A. area. Her passion is teaching you to become a better birder, while finding the birds you seek.

12/10/2023

Festival registration in its busiest time. AS of 12/10/23, the STA #1 and Palm Beach wetlands trip is full. You can be added to a waiting list or go on the South Florida Exotics trip with David Simpson.
The Corkscrew Swamp trip is ALMOST full with only 5 spots left.

REMEMBER the festival is limited to 60 birders to continue to offer the best birding experience in order to keep the guide to participant level low.
REGISTER TODAY.

11/10/2023

FESTIVAL CONFIRMATIONS are now being sent out. ALL field trips are still available, although as usual Corkscrew is starting to fill up.
Send a copy of your registration form to [email protected] so I can hold you spot.