SNOW HILL – Registration is open for the 20th Annual Delmarva Birding Weekend, which will be held April 23-26.
The weekend celebrates the spring migration of warblers, shorebirds, waterfowl and raptors and the birds that reside on the Peninsula year-round. Combining boat trips, paddling treks and expeditions by foot, the weekend takes place in the wild lands and waters that feed into the Chesapeake and Delaware bays and the Atlantic Coastal Bays.
The Delmarva Peninsula is one of the country’s premier birding areas, thanks to an extensive variety of habitat protected by coastal parks, refuges and wildlife management areas. On tours led by expert guides, birders will observe hundreds of species on Delmarva’s barrier islands, in tidal salt marshes, cypress swamps, upland fields and forested lands. More than 400 bird species have been recorded in the region.
“It’s our vast shallow bays and large tracts of protected marshes and baldcypress forests that make the Delmarva Peninsula one of the finest birding regions in the nation,” said event organizer and guide Jim Rapp. “During the weekend, our guests will hike on private farmland and woodland that is normally off-limits to birders, and our waterborne trips go where the birds are. In late April, we will see waterfowl that winter here just before they migrate north, and early-arriving warblers and shorebirds that have just flown in from the Caribbean and South America. You can start your morning with Prothonotary Warblers and Barred Owls in the baldcypress swamp, spend your afternoon with Common Loons and Piping Plovers along our coastal shores, and end your day with Clapper Rails and Chuck-will’s-widows by the twilight marsh. None of our trips is physically taxing, but this is a rare opportunity to tally 100 species in a day in places that are normally inaccessible to birders.”
Birders, both novice and experienced, can make an important statement about the economic value of birds and their habitats through the money they spend in local hotels, restaurants, and shops. Birders are encouraged to remind local businesses that they are here to enjoy Delmarva’s natural areas and the birds that inhabit them.
Registration information, field trip descriptions and resources for Delmarva birding are available at www.DelmarvaBirding.org. Theweekend is organized by Worcester County Tourism/The Beach & Beyond. For more information, call 800-852-0335 or email [email protected].