2011 Winter Wings Festival

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!

The Klamath Basin Audubon Society is delighted to invite you to join us Presidents' Day Weekend in Klamath Falls, Oregon for the 32nd annual Winter Wings Festival. We are home to the largest concentration of wintering Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states. Located in both south central Oregon and northern California, the Klamath Basin is a key stopover on the Pacific Flyway, hosting 80% of the birds that use the Flyway. A total of six separate nearby refuges comprise the total National Wildlife Refuge complex spanning nearly 200,000 acres. A unique, strong cooperative partnership between farming, water resources, and the refuges provides an abundance of prime habitat that attracts vast numbers of waterfowl and raptors.

Phenomenal birding/nature-related opportunities for all ages are yours at the Winter Wings Festival. Whether you are a beginning birder, a life-long birding enthusiast, or a photographer of any skill level, you will be impressed by the rich diversity present in the Klamath Basin during wintertime.

We will offer three full days of birding and nature photography activities including a host of new presenters and field trips.

2011 Keynoters

Friday February 18, Jeffrey Gordon

Jeffrey A. Gordon is a writer, photographer and naturalist who lives in Lewes, Delaware. In addition to leading birding tours around a goodly portion of the globe, he is a frequent speaker and trip leader at birding and nature festivals. He serves as field editor for Birdwatcher's Digest, and is the coordinator for the Delaware Birding Trail. Since 2003, he has led tours part-time, frequently visiting Canada, Texas, Mexico, and Panama. He authored 11 of the chapters in the 2005 book Identify Yourself: The 50 Most Common Birding Identification Challenges, and contributed an essay to the 2007 collection, Good Birders Don't Wear White: 50 Tips from North America's Top Birders. He recently produced a series of video podcasts in conjunction with the new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, and provided the bird photographs for the 2010 Peterson Field Guides to Eastern and Western birds.

Saturday February 19, Art Morris

Art Morris is a free-lance nature photographer and writer specializing in birds. With more than 20,000 of his stunning images published in books, magazines, and calendars all over the globe, Art Morris is widely recognized as the world's premier bird photographer. His images are noted for both their artistic design and their technical excellence. His fitting credit line: BIRDS AS ART. His book, "The Art of Bird Photography" is - with more than 30,000 copies sold - the classic How-to work on the subject. The all-new follow-up, "The Art of Bird Photography II" (916 pages on CD only) has sold more than 3,500 copies. He is a contributing editor with Nature Photographer and is a Popular Photography columnist. Art, one of the original "Explorers of Light," has been a Canon contract photographer for the past ten years and continues in that role today.

Photo by Art Morris

Comments from Past Attendees

My Top 25 Birding Sites by Pete Dunne in March/April 2011 WildBird Magazine:
Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge
...."Straddling the states' order, this complex of marsh, lakes and agricultural land offers a cornucopia for wintering waterfowl and raptors During January and February, more than 1,000 Bald Eagles infest the region, but it's the hundreds of Tundra Swans I remember most, filling the winter-stilled air with calls that are one part whoop, one part sigh".

Birder's Weekend by Henry Miller in the January 23, 2011 Statesman Journal, Salem Oregon:
Glen Lindeman, Salem Audubon: "Oh it's a great festival," especially if you're not an avid birder, he said. "They've got so many programs for interests other than specifically birds." ..."World-class speakers," Lindeman said. "The last two years I went, I was rubbing elbows and knees with the guys who wrote the bird books that I'd been reading -- Pete Dunne and Scott Weidensaul -- get to know the personalities that wrote the ID books and other stuff. "It's great fun."

Digital Darkroom Blog by Mark Fitzgerald
"After living in the Pacific Northwest for almost twenty years, I never had the opportunity to get a decent photo of a Bald Eagle Even with a special trip to the Puget Sound area last January, I only saw a few of them, with little opportunity to get a good photo of one. That all changed when I went to the Winter Wings Festival in Klamath Falls, Oregon last February".