Bird Watching: Festival Registration

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Birder Buzz

“You did it again. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We had the best time. I know how much work it takes behind the scenes to put something like this together. Everyone was great – from the guides to the locals. Can’t wait for next year!”

Teri Shiels – Michigan

Registration Instructions

Choose a Trip and lodging package from the left column. You can select a full or half week package with or without lodging. You can also select a field trip by individual days with no lodging.

Birding Festival Itinerary

The weeklong itinerary includes the following trips: Birding by Butt, Cranberry Glades Wilderness, Sugar Creek/Gauley River National Recreation Area, Muddlety Strips, and High Country – with a choice of Swainson’s Warbler, Birding by Boat, or New River Circuit.

The Sunday through Wednesday itinerary is: Birding by Butt, High Country Trip, and Sugar Creek/Gauley River National Recreation Area.

Wednesday through Saturday itinerary is: Birding by Butt, Muddlety Strips, and Cranberry Glades.

Birding Festival Trip Options and Prices

Before you register for your birding festival trip here is a list of trip options and prices:

Weeklong Birding Festival with deluxe lodging includes: a deluxe lodging option, three meals a day, daily field trips and evening presentations.

Single Occupancy - $1,299

Double Occupancy - $1,499

Weeklong Birding Festival with standard lodging includes: lodging, three meals a day, daily field trips and evening presentations.

Single Occupancy - $1,099

Double Occupancy - $1,299

Weeklong Birding Festival with no lodging: includes three meals a day and daily field trips.

Single Occupancy - $599

Double Occupancy - $999

Half week festival Sunday through Wednesday with deluxe lodging includes: a deluxe lodging option Sunday through Wednesday, three meals a day, daily field trips and evening presentations.

Single Occupancy - $799

Double Occupancy - $999

Half week festival Sunday through Wednesday with standard lodging includes: lodging Sunday through Wednesday, three meals a day, daily field trips, and evening presentations.

Single Occupancy - $599

Double Occupancy - $799

Half week festival Wednesday through Saturday with deluxe lodging includes: a deluxe lodging option Wednesday through Saturday, three meals a day, daily field trips, and evening presentations.

Single Occupancy - $859

Double Occupancy - $1059

Half week festival Wednesday through Saturday with standard lodging includes: lodging, Wednesday through Saturday, three meals a day, daily field trips, and evening presentations.

Single Occupancy - $659

Double Occupancy - $859

Half week festival Wednesday through Saturday with no lodging.

Single Occupancy - $359

Double Occupancy - $659

Single day registration includes: dinner and presentation the night before your trip, three meals the day of your trip, and a field trip.

Tuesday Single Day Birding - $150

Wednesday Single Day Birding - $150

Friday Single Day Birding - $150

Saturday Single Day Birding - $175

High Country Trip

Golden Winged Warbler

The High Country has been a staple of the New River Birding Festival program since the event’s inception. Due to altitude and topography the High Country is not only a migrant trap but it also the area’s last territory to come into full foliage leaving participants excellent views of warblers and other resident and migrant species.

The trip traditionally starts with a stop at the county’s only breeding ground for Bobolink, a gated field which the owner allows the Festival guests to access. As we explore along the Glade Creek Road, birds normally encountered include Golden-Winged Warbler, Canada warbler, Black-Throated Green, American Redstart, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut Sided Warbler, Indigo Bunting and more. In fact, some species counts for this trip in the past have been in the low 90s.

Breakfast is at Burnwood 6 AM.

Sugar Creek/Gauley River National Recreation Area

Scarlet Tanager

This trip was added to the New River Birding Festival itinerary three years ago and continues to receive rave reviews. It is a short drive and a very birdie route. Descending from a high ridge separating the New and Gauley rivers, Sugar Creek provides the unique experience of exploring high, mid-level and river level territories all in the same trip.

While recent and on-going timbering has fragmented the habitat, edge species have thrived while deciduous nesters have still managed to stake out enough territory so as to remain in abundance. Birds commonly seen on this trip include Cerulean Warbler (in fact, the highest concentrations we have yet seen of Cerulean in our region turned up here in 2007), Yellow and Black-Billed Cuckoo, Scarlet Tanager, Black-Throated Green Warbler, Ovenbird, Worm-Eating Warbler, Baltimore Oriole and Orchard Oriole.

Breakfast is at Burnwood 6 AM.

Lunch - overlook at Hawks Nest.

Cranberry Glades

Cranberry Glades, West Virginia

This trip features a scenic, 90-minute drive each way, “Well worth the drive” was the report from guests and guides alike, The trip is offered just twice during the week, so book it early. A remnant of the glacial age, Cranberry Glades is among West Virginia’s most unique eco-systems. A boardwalk through a botanical area is ripe with flora seen nowhere else in West Virginia. Also often seen on this trip are Black Bear. As an opportunity to take full advantage of this unique flora and fauna, we staff this trip with our best naturalists.

Birds normally encountered on this trip include Black-Throated Blue Warbler, Black-Throated Green, Chestnut-Sided Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Northern Waterthrush, Veery, Wood Thrush, Cerulean Warbler and Red Crossbill – a species not normally encountered elsewhere in the state.

Breakfast will be at Burnwood at 6 AM.

Following a Picnic Lunch at the U.S. Forest Service Visitor Center we will depart for the drive back to Burnwood arriving about 3 PM.

Burnwood to Babcock

Cranberry Glades, West Virginia

After years of tying this into our High Country trip, we have split this remarkable territory off into its own stand-alone outing.

Babcock is teaming with warblers vireos and offers some of the best opportunities for Black throated swainson's and Blue headed vireos. And due to the trail along the Man's Creek Canyon, most of these birds are seen at or near eye level.

After lunch at Babcock , return to burnwood around 2pm.

Kanawha Falls to Burnwood

Cranberry Glades, West Virginia

Following a hot breakfast at Burnwood, a 45 minute drive takes you to Kanawha Falls, the cliff swallow area's best site for waterfowl. After probng the river for the like of hooded merganser, pied-billed grebe ring necked duck, start back up the mountain to seek out mid-level passerines.

A stop at Fayette County Park takes you to one of the county's best spot, for red headed woodpecker, pileated, downey, hairy and eastern flicker.

Last year, this imprompt trip settled in excess of 80 species.

Finish with lunch at Burnwood where the day began.

Muddlety Strips

Blue Winged Warbler

Described by Leica field representative Jeff Gordon as “the birdiest habitat in the Appalachians”, the old Muddlety strip mines offer the areas very best opportunity to see Blue-Winged Warbler, and maybe someday, the hybridized Brewster’s Warbler (a Blue-Winged and Golden-Winged mix).

In 2007, visitors who made this trip and the Sugar Creek trip staples of their Festival itinerary saw more Cerulean Warblers than – as one experienced guest put it – “I’d seen in my 40 years of birding combined.”

The trip entails traveling up an old logging road as far as the van will go with stops along the way, then a short hiking to the Largest Poplar Tree in the state. This grassy overgrown strip area is favored by Blue-Winged Warblers. However, this should not be construed as a specialty trip. In year's past, participants averaged 70-plus species per trip.

Breakfast is at Burnwood 6 AM Lunch is served in the field with no modern conveniences until we are in route back to Burnwood for our 3 PM (ish) finish.

Birding by Boat

Birding by Boat on Hawks Nest Lake

Unique to the New River Birding and Nature Festival, the Birding by Boat option is offered only on Tuesday. Starting out just below the famed whitewater section of New River, the trip is a three-mile float through placid Hawks Nest Lake.

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Baltimore Oriole, Indigo Bunting, Pileated Woodpecker and as many as seven species of birds of prey are potential sightings on this trip. Spotted Sandpiper, Louisiana Waterthrush, Wood Duck and Green Heron are also common on this float.

Breakfast at 6 AM at Songer Whitewater

Lunch is served when we get off the water at the base of Hawks Nest State Park

Please note that it is important to have shoes you do not mind getting wet, sun screen and rain gear available for this trip.

New River Circuit Trip

Ovenbird in The New River Gorge

This trip is offered to show off some of our local’s favorite quick and easy spots to bird.

We visit some of the local hotspots such as Birds Eye View, Thurmond, Bridge View and Concho. This trip offers the opportunity to explore every habitat level along the spectacular New River Gorge.

Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, Blue-Winged Teal, Louisiana Waterthrush, Pileated Woodpecker, Broad-Winged Hawk, Ovenbird, Worm-Eating Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Bay-Breasted Warbler, Red-Eyed Vireo and Hooded Warbler are birds often encountered on this trip.

Breakfast at Burnwood 6 AM Lunch in the field. Easy access to Modern conveniences.

Birding by Butt

Casual Birdwatching in West Virginia

Offered Monday of Festival week for our week-long guests and those here for the first half of the week, and Thursday for those coming in at week’s end, Birding by Butt is yet another unique part of the New River Birding and Nature Festival. An opportunity to meet other festival participants, spend quality time with our well-known and respected field guides, the setting is best described as laid back while the birding is most often described as spectacular.

Imagine sipping a hot cup of coffee on the porch at Opossum Creek Retreat and being treated to the song and fiery looks of a Blackburnian Warbler – not an occurrence that happens every year, but certainly one that has happened more than once. Hooded Warbler, Black-and-White, and Northern Parula are in abundance here and with plenty of spotting scopes and well-trained eyes on hand, many of our guests find themselves seeing the birds often enough that they turn from identification to watching for behaviors.