On Saturday, September 30, Dave and I went to the 3rd Annual American Birding Expo at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oak, Pennsylvania.
The American Birding Expo was founded by Bill Thompson III, the editor and publisher of Bird Watcher’s Digest. The event’s slogan is “the world of birding in one place!”. I originally heard about the Expo while listening to the podcast This Birding Life, which is hosted by Bill Thompson III (if you haven’t listened to This Birding Life you should check it out!). Dave and I live less than an hour from the expo center, so we thought it would be a great event to check out.
This 3-day event features field trips, guest speakers, travel companies, merchandise, and much more. The first section of the hall was filled with travel companies from all over the world. According to the Expo website, in 2016, over 41 countries and 42 states were represented. Some of the countries present this year were Panama, Taiwan, Chile, Ecuador, Australia, Uganda, Portugal, Mexico, and New Zealand. There were also booths for optics companies, such as Zeiss, Swarovski, Celestron, and Opticron. Organizations such as the Cape May Bird Observatory, Bird Life International, and Bird Watcher’s Digest could also be found in the first hall. We also had the chance to meet Conrad, a blue jay who lives at the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove.
The second hall featured artists, publishers, and shops. Julie Zickefoose, bird artist and author had a booth. She was also the Friday night featured presenter. Dave and I are a fan of bird-related art, and we ended up buying some watercolors from Ohio-based artist Jim Turanchik. Turanchik’s goal in his art is to capture the essence of birds, which I feel he does very well. The birds in his watercolors seem like they are moving. He does this by portraying them at different angles. He also has a “Birds in Flight” collection, which feature larger birds such as Anhingas, Great Blue Herons, Wood Storks, and Glossy Ibis to name a few. We purchased two watercolors, a Magnolia Warbler and a Blackburnian Warbler. You can check out his website at jturanchik.com.
(We hung the watercolors up in our dining area, which is near a small chandelier. I took this pictures on an angle because no matter what lighting I try to use you can see reflections, so sorry for the bad angles).
At the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing booth, author Stephen Shunk was signing copies of the his book, Peterson Reference Guide to Woodpeckers of North America. As longtime blog readers know, I already own this book (and happily used it to write last fall’s Woodpecker Wednesday feature), so I got my copy signed! I found out that Stephen Shunk’s favorite woodpecker is the Lewis’s Woodpecker and we talked about Pileateds and Red-headed Woodpeckers. It was really cool to meet an author and get my book signed. He wished me “Happy Woodpecker Watching!”, which I will definitely do.
One event that I wanted to see but didn’t was Scott Weidensaul’s presentation on Project SNOWstorm. I’m a fan of Weidensaul’s nature books, but the presentation was from 6-8, which was a little late for us since we were there in the morning. There were also morning bird hikes each day of the expo from 7-10 am. There were 5 birding locations around Philadelphia were birders could meet to take guided tours. We didn’t end up going to any of them, but we did explore one of the locations on our own after the expo.
After lunch, we drove over to the Militia Hill section of Fort Washington State Park, one of the Expo birding hotspots. The Militia Hill section features a Hawk Watch platform and is near the Wissahickon Creek. We spent some time sitting on the platform and them briefly walked around the area. Some birds we saw included an American Redstart, an Osprey, Turkey Vultures, Blue Jays, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, and House Finches. It was a lovely place that I’d like to explore more one day.
It was still early in the day and we weren’t done with birds yet! After Militia Hill, we drove back to New Jersey and hiked around Palmyra Cove. Highlights included 2 Bald Eagles, a Green Heron, a Red-bellied Woodpecker cleaning out its hole, Wild Turkeys, and Eastern Phoebes.
September 30th was a fantastic day. We not only had a fun time at the American Birding Expo, but spent the day outside with the birds. I couldn’t have asked for a better birding day.
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