25th Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival Soars Back to New Heights
When selecting a mascot for its 2024 version of the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, organizers opted for the sandhill crane, a gregarious bird purported to bring good fortune. The choice has worked, for good luck already seems to be on the side of a festival that swooped from a top position in the nation to near extinction, and yet has quickly rebounded, thanks to good friends.
In 2020, the festival, always held as a winter event to enjoy the primo bird abundance in Brevard County during the cooler months of the year, was the last of its kind to run before the pandemic. In 2021, the festival struggled as a virtual presence and was ready to return to in-person by 2022 before yet another challenge arose.
“Three weeks before the start, Omicron appeared, and it was like a torpedo hit us,” said executive director Barb Eager. “Registration went from 700 to nothing in 48 hours.”
In 2023, additional financial woes prompted festival host Brevard Nature Alliance to dissolve, but major festival sponsors — both local and international — stepped in to keep the festival from dying. Austria-based Swarovski Optik, Wildside Nature Tours from Pennsylvania and Titusville’s Laurilee Thompson of the famed Dixie Crossroads restaurant provided significant support to revive the festival, now hosted by new parent organization Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Association.
Back for its 25th annual iteration, the festival returns January 24-28 at the Radisson Resort at the Port. The unique event has always embraced both the general public as well as the experienced enthusiast, with many of its programs encompassing more than birding.
“You don’t have to be a birder to enjoy the festival,” Eager said.
In the past, Swarovski Optik used the festival to debut new products, and this year is no exception as the company introduces items such as the breakthrough EL Range 32 binocular, among others.
“We’re excited to be back to Florida in January to reconnect with our customers and see some Florida birds again,” said Clay Taylor, naturalist market manager for Swarovski Optik North America. “The Festival organizes field trips so hundreds of birders can see up to 200 bird species in a single weekend. Birding festivals like the Space Coast’s also provide participants with lectures, opportunities to meet authors and artists and to try out the newest binoculars, spotting scopes and cameras.”
Programs run the gamut, from boat trips to bird-rich Pelican Island and an amble through the Tosohatchee marshes in Christmas to a St. Johns River cruise and tour to see manatees at Blue Springs.
“We have an amazing assortment of trips covering a five-county area,” Eager said.
Add photography workshops and presentations, guest speakers considered A-listers in the wildlife and nature field, outstanding nature artists exhibiting their work and a range of vendors offering wildlife tours and nature-related products make for a full agenda.
“We’re back at full throttle,” Eager said.
If You Go
Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival
When: Jan. 24-28, 2024
Where: Radisson Resort at the Port, 8701 Astronaut Blvd., Cape Canaveral
Website: scbwa.net
Facebook: /SCBWF
Instagram: /space_coast_birding_assn
X: @scbwa_net
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