We’ve improved our ever-popular itinerary to South Australia and Northern Territory, giving us more time to explore the barely tapped avian riches of Darwin and Katherine–and some world-famous scenery along the way.

Another, equally happy result of substituting more time at Katherine for (inordinately expensive) Kakadu is a decrease in price: we’ve been able to lower the 2009 tour cost by some $170. Join us. There may never be a better time!

Senior Leader Paul Lehman reflects on this year’s Space Coast Festival:

For many of us at the Space Coast Birding Festival at Titusville, Florida, the allure of such a meeting is all the winter birds, Florida specialties, the impressive variety of habitats, the large extent of some of the bird-rich re-created wetlands–and thawing out for a week from winter’s chill.

Photo: Gavin Bieber.

Just part of the list is enough to raise any birder’s temperature:

Limpkin.  Snail Kite. Crested Caracara. Florida Scrub-Jay. Flocks of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks and Sandhill Cranes. Anhinga. Purple Gallinule.
Roseate Spoonbill. Surprise Ash-throated Flycatcher, Say’s Phoebe, Le Conte’s Sparrow, and Glaucous, Iceland, and Thayer’s Gulls. A pelagic trip with Audubon’s Shearwaters, Bridled Terns, and Red Phalaropes.

They all showed up for this year’s festival. And on a couple of mornings we had something we weren’t quite ready for: freezing temperatures (though at least in Florida the temps will climb in to the 50s or 60s even after being in the 30s at dawn). And on one of those mornings, I was assigned to help lead a trip for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, which requires a dawn arrival at the roost holes, after a ride in an open truck with hay bales in the back for seats.

Having just recently moved to the mild, blood-thinning climes of San Diego, and expecting nothing but the mildest of weather in central Florida, we nearly froze our proverbial rears off as we drove through the open pine woods to the site. But–we saw the woodpeckers!

Look for WINGS next year at the Space Coast Festival, or join one of our scheduled tours to (normally!) warm Florida and the Caribbean.