The sixth annual Black Belt Birding Festival lands in Greensboro and across the region next weekend, July 31 through Aug. 2, bringing three days of guided field trips, art, music and history to eight Black Belt counties.
The festival, presented by Alabama Audubon with Alabama Black Belt Adventures, opens Friday, July 31, at 5 p.m. with a free kickoff at Project Horseshoe Farm, 1202 Main St., Greensboro, featuring a welcome from Alabama Audubon Executive Director Dr. Scot Duncan, live music from singer-songwriter Rachel Edwards with jazz guitarist John Holaway, and refreshments.
Nate Swick, host of the American Birding Podcast and author of A Beginner’s Guide to Birding, will deliver the keynote address Saturday, Aug. 1, at the Greensboro Opera House.
Guided trips begin Saturday morning across Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Marengo, Perry, Sumter and Wilcox counties.
Highlights include:
- Birding from the 100-foot tower designed by Auburn University’s Rural Studio at Perry Lakes Park near Marion.
- A beginner’s walk in Selma led by Terry Chestnut Jr., exploring the region’s role in the Civil Rights Movement.
- The Joe Farm, a fourth-generation Black-owned cattle ranch where swallow-tailed and Mississippi kites snatch insects from the air behind Cornelius Joe’s tractor.
The farm has drawn international attention, with features on BBC Travel, Nat Geo’s Extraordinary Birder and Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Living Bird magazine.
Sunday’s offerings include Old Cahawba Archaeological Park, a visit to the Hall Family Farm, a Dallas County campsite used by foot soldiers during the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, and canoe birding on the oxbow lakes at Perry Lakes Park with the Cahaba River Society. In all, the weekend offers 30 events, and attendees can build their own itineraries.
Closer to home, Greensboro galleries will carry the theme through the weekend, with bird-related fine art at Aaron Sanders Head’s Sumac Cottage, 1107 South St., and the Engle Gallery, 1301 Main St., plus a historic exhibit, Feathers in Fashion, at Magnolia Grove, 1002 Hobson St., presented with the Alabama Historical Commission and guest curator Ian Crawford of the University of Alabama.
“Nowhere else can you see flocks of swallow-tailed kites and wood storks swirling over a landscape where civil rights foot soldiers marched for freedom and democracy,” Duncan said.
Alabama Audubon’s Black Belt Birding Initiative aims to bring the economic benefits of bird-based ecotourism to the region.
Tickets and full event information are available at ALAudubon.org.
