photo courtesy of Fred Phillips

Update 4/22/2009

Thank you everyone for your participation and help with the 2009 Yuma Birding & Nature Festival.  Over the next week I will be posting photographs and a species list for this year's event and will also be updating the Art Contest page with the art from this year's winning artist, Judy Phillips.  Stay tuned for more info and we look forward to seeing you in 2010!

Added a page for the 2009 Bird Sightings logged by Participants.

2009 Highlights

The 2009 festival was held at the new Pivot Point Conference Center, located along the Colorado River and close to the Yuma East Wetlands Restoration Project.

175 Participants came from all over the United States, including Hawaii, Florida, and Washington.

We had three full days of educational seminars on 23 different topics focused on watchable wildlife in the Yuma area, Yuma's history, and the desert southwest.

We hosted 32 watchable wildlife Field Trips.  In addition to local wildlife viewing locations we also traveled to La Cienega, El Doctor, El Golfo, and the Andrade Wetlands in Mexico, and the Salton Sea in California.

Changes to this year's festival included:  Historical and wildlife viewing Segway tours along the Colorado River, tours of Castle Dome Mines and Ghostown.  Evening Carne Asada cookout and stargazing at the Horse Tanks hiking excursion, and Jet Boat tours on the Lower Colorado River.

This year we also hosted the 1st annual FREE "Youth Nature Day" where local youth could participate in a variety of activities including, horse rides, building birdhouses, live animal displays by the Arizona Dept. of Game and Fish, and nature related arts & crafts.  During the afternoon we also had traditional and bird dance performances by the three different Quechan Tribal dance groups.

 Moving away from the traditional banquet we hosted our dinner this year at The Quartermaster's Depot State Historic Park, with Brian Golding, Sr. from the Quechan Indian Tribe as our Keynote Speaker.