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2001 BEAUMONT CONVENTION REPORT

18-24 April 2001

Bird list | Conservation project | Sponsors | ABA awards

Nearly 600 ABA members attended the ABA's seventeenth Convention where they enjoyed a myriad of fun-filled activities including several very productive field trips, evening dinners with entertaining programs, educational bird workshops, numerous exhibitors' and artists' displays, an authors' book signing, social hours, and ABA Sales.

Getting out and seeing birds is always the feature attraction at Conventions and the birding was fantastic again this year. Long known as a great birding hot spot, the Upper Texas Coast certainly lived up to its reputation as one of North America's premier spring birding destinations. The results speak for themselves -- a grand total of 232 species were recorded on Convention field trips! The highlights were many, and included sightings of an amazing 35 species of shorebirds and 35 species of warblers during the week! Kudos and special thanks to Victor Emanuel and Jeff Gordon of VENT for superbly organizing the Convention field trips - and to all of the volunteer field trip leaders for a job exceptionally well done!

Our trips to the Piney Woods produced great looks at Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and Bachman's Sparrow -- and many also enjoyed wonderful views of the always elusive Swainson's Warbler. Participants on the Anahuac NWR trip saw lots of Least Bitterns, along with a fine assortment of other water birds. A stop at some near-by flooded rice fields provided excellent views of American Golden-Plover and Buff-breasted Sandpiper. A few lucky groups were pleased to also find Hudsonian Godwits and White-rumped Sandpipers among the many other commoner species present. The Bolivar Peninsula was a birders' paradise with countless thousands of shore and water birds gathered on the tidal flats there. Magnificent Frigatebird, Reddish Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, eight species of terns, Wilson's, Snowy, and Piping Plovers, and Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow delighted participants -- and a Glaucous Gull and a Green-tailed Towhee elsewhere on the Peninsula were unexpected surprises.

While there wasn't a weather-induced fallout of birds during the Convention, each trip to the coastal areas yielded a nice variety of species. Field trips to High Island, Sabine Woods, and Cameron Parish, all migrant traps, produced the expected gathering of passerines -- including flycatchers, vireos, thrushes, warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, buntings, and orioles. Most of the typical trans-Gulf migrants were seen in good numbers. However, as might be expected, some of the more elusive species including Black-billed Cuckoo, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Philadelphia Vireo, and Golden-winged, Cape May, Bay-breasted, Cerulean, Swainson's, and Canada Warblers were seen well by some groups but missed by others. Other crowd-pleasers included the wading bird rookery at High Island, Cave Swallows at Sea Rim State Park, and Purple Gallinules at Cameron Parish.

An unexpected bonus during the Convention was a Little Gull at the Beaumont Sewer Ponds -- just five minutes from the Convention hotel. There were no organized field trips to this location, but most attendees found a way to get over to have a look at this very cooperative bird.

When not birding, attendees were treated to many other interesting and educational activities. Entertaining evening programs were given by Greg Lasley, Pete Dunne, Bill Stott, Victor Emanuel, and Kenn Kaufman. Informative workshops were presented by Wayne Petersen, Jon Dunn, Sid Gauthreaux, Dick Walton, David Sibley, and Clay Sutton. Clay also presented a special program on How to Spot an Owl and Stephen Ingraham moderated a lively panel discussion on Improving your Birding Skills. Exhibitors, bird artists, and a well-stocked ABA Sales operation treated the attendees with information and for sale items related to optics, tours, books, art, and many other bird related products and services. Both Kenn Kaufman and David Sibley signed literally stacks of books, as did several other authors during two book signing sessions.

Attendees and our corporate partners always contribute generously to local conservation initiatives during the Convention and this year was no exception. Through these contributions, ABA shows its appreciation to the community that hosts us for the Convention, and it ensures that we assist in the long-term management and conservation of local bird populations. It also exemplifies birding economics in action, highlighting the contributions traveling birders make to local economies. In addition to supporting the Houston Audubon Society's efforts to conserve Bolivar Flats as the primary Convention project (see below), we were also able to contribute $1000 each to the Texas Ornithological Society and the Friends of Anahuac for conservation-related projects.

The ABA's 2002 meeting schedule is firm with a Regional Conference 18-22 January in Miami, Florida and the next Annual Convention in Duluth, Minnesota from 10-16 June. Watch for the formal announcements in future issues of Winging It and make plans now to attend one or more of these meetings!

CONVENTION CONSERVATION PROJECT

Each year, the American Birding Association supports a conservation project in the area of its Annual Convention site. This year, the ABA grant will be awarded to the Houston Audubon Society (HAS) in support of their efforts to protect critical Gulf Coast bird habitat around Bolivar Flats. In cooperation with a number of partners, they are purchasing a 615-acre tract of gulf front beach, salt marsh, and uplands adjacent to the Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary in Port Bolivar, Galveston County, Texas. Bolivar Flats is an exceptionally productive complex of mud flats, marsh, uplands and gulf front beach. This ideal combination of habitats provides resting, feeding and/or breeding sites for hundreds of thousands of birds each year -- and its importance to over 25 species of shorebirds has prompted its designation as "a site of hemispheric importance" by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network. For further details, please see the March 2001 issue of Winging It. ABA assisted in the Bolivar Flats conservation project by donating $10 of each Convention attendee*s registration fee toward the project; additional donations have been made by ABA members, Leica Camera Inc., Pentax Sport Optics, Swarovski Optik N.A., and Zeiss Sports Optics for a total donation of $12,000 to this very important conservation initiative. If you wish to make a contribution to the Bolivar Flats project, please send a check payable to ABA-Bolivar Flats Project to: ABA, 4945 N 30th St, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80919.

OUR SUPPORTERS AND SPONSORS

Many corporate sponsors helped make the Convention a success by supporting various activities. More than 40 exhibitors were present, and nine of these contributed significantly toward Convention activities. Leica Camera, Inc. was the lead sponsor, and other major contributors included Pentax Sport Optics (lead sponsor for 2002), Swarovski Optik N.A., Zeiss Sports Optics, Bushnell Sports Optics, Brunton Company, Swift Instruments Inc., Beaumont Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Motorola Corporation. The generous support of these sponsors helps us keep Convention costs down and gives us greater flexibility in our other endeavors. Their support is greatly appreciated.

THE ABA AWARDS PRESENTED AT THE CONVENTION

Each sponsor donates $1000 to ABA's Education Fund and provides each winner with a top of the line binocular.

Cindy Lippincott and Bob Berman of Colorado Springs, Colorado, each received their own ABA Claudia Wilds Distinguished Service Award. When ABA was stumbling in the late 1980s, the couple was appointed by the Board to operate ABA Sales "for a couple years" to make it profitable rather than a liability. Bob wound up bringing the association into the computer age, developing and maintaining ABA's computer systems for over a decade. He also has a significant role in publications production and served as Business Manager from 1989 until 1997. Cindy managed ABA Sales until 1996, was founding editor of Winging It in 1989, handled membership administration until 1994, and had a significant role in the acquisition and production of the ABA Birdfinding Guide series and other publications. The award is sponsored by Pentax Sport Optics.

Pete Dunne of Cape May, New Jersey, received the ABA Roger Tory Peterson Award for advancing the cause of birding. Pete founded the Cape May Hawkwatch, the World Series of Birding, and the Cape May Bird Show. He is the author of many books and articles on birding. Serving as an unofficial roving ambassador, his influence has changed the way politicians and the business community view birders and birding. The award is sponsored by Swarovski Optik N.A.

Peter Pyle of Stinson Beach, California, received the ABA Ludlow Griscom Award for Publications in Field Ornithology. The award is given to authors and artists for excellence in publications pertaining to field ornithology, specifically on the subjects of field identification and distribution in North America. Peter received the award for his second major publication Identification Guide to North American Birds: Part One, which was published in 1997. The award is sponsored by Bushnell Sports Optics.

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