FeatherFest 2007
Thursday March 29 - Sunday April 1
Galveston Island, Texas

"It was by far the best-organized and smoothest-run event of this nature that I have ever attended. The variety of the field trips, lectures and other events was outstanding. In my opinion, there was something for anyone and everyone with an interest in birding, nature, conservation, history and related items."

The theme of FeatherFest 2007 will be "nature preservation" and its theme bird will be the Brown Pelican, a preservation success story.

In 2002, responding to a seminar sponsored by George Mitchell (founder of the Mitchell Energy Company) the Galveston Nature Tourism Council was formed and was chaired by Lyda Ann Thomas, now Galveston’s Mayor. Its purpose is to increase the Galveston business community’s share of the growing nature tourism market and encourage environmental awareness as our island prospers. A start toward these ends occurred when the group voted to hold an annual birding and nature festival and created the name “FeatherFest” for it

Since its inception the festival has been held during the first weekend that has an April date. Thus for 2007 the dates will be Thursday March 29 through Sunday April 1. The first weekend in April is not the peak of the spring birding migration season (which would be late April, early May.) but it provides an opportunity to see numerous spring migrant species plus some of the bird species that winter on the Gulf coast and who have not yet departed for their breeding grounds to our north. For a fix on the birds you could see at FeatherFest 2007, check on the lists of birds seen during FeatherFest 2004 – 2006. It will be fun to see what birds you can add to these lists in 2007.

But the festival is not ALL about birds, there will be nature trips with a focus on Butterflies, Dragonflies and Damselflies, the Bay fringes, photography etc and seminars on a whole range of topics.

There will also be some organized events for those who have an interest in some of the other delights of Galveston. We call these Optional events. Check them out! They are really pretty neat. We introduced this idea for FF 2006 and it was such a hit that we kept it in and expanded it for 2007.

For those that have attended FeatherFest in prior years, Feather Fest 2007 will be bigger and better than anything before. It will offer more time to attend and more events to choose from. So don’t be concerned that you will just do the same thing again, come on back and bring your friends. The festival will open early on the Thursday and there will be events scheduled throughout Sunday morning returning up to 2pm. The signature Social evenings are still very much part of our “show”.

Many birding events are not too suitable for young children but we are specifically identifying those that are Child Friendly. We are also planning a Family “Funday on Sunday” especially for children and their moms, dads and grandparents. We ask that children under 10years (including babies in arms etc), not be signed up for a trip or carried onto a trip unless it is marked Child Friendly.

Blessed with great weather and some excellent local press coverage, FeatherFest 2006, Galveston's fourth Birding and Nature festival, broke new ground with 336 persons registering for a sampling of the 64 events offered .This represented an 8% increase over 2005. While the majority of registrants, as usual, came from the greater Houston/Galveston area, almost 30% arrived from deep Texas, 16 other states and 3 countries (Canada, Mexico and the UK). City fathers would like to see more visitors from out of state, so come visit, we promise you'll have a grand time.

Good weather and good birding are not often compatible and the preliminary count of species seen did not reach the over 200 seen in 2005, being pretty light on neotropical migrants. But good weather does wonders for the spirit and attendees seemed to have a great time.

Those who have attended before know that we pass out forms whose purpose is to capture the economic impact of the festival on the City. This is an extremely important activity for those who are trying to save habitats for nature tourists to tour, and for keeping this wonderful festival growing.

http://www.galvestonfeatherfest.com/