The 19^th Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival opened its registration last week with nearly 200 birders making reservations during the first day of opening. The festival will be held November 7-11. The event will feature field trips guided by birding experts, informative seminars and a trade show with lots of birding-related vendors.

The Rio Grande Valley has become a Mecca for serious, as well as amateur, birders. The new and different opportunities keep visitors coming back for sightings of our wonderful native, as well as migrant, species.

Sites included this year are area state parks, King Ranch, South Padre Island, and Laguna Atascosa and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuges. Trips and other events have been tailored for those that can only do minimal walking, for beginners, first time visitors, family trips and veterans to birding.

The wide variety of special events, seminars and field trips, combined with the birding opportunities unique to the Rio Grande Valley, a major bird migration flyway, make the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival a “must-do” event for birders and others who just enjoy the outdoors.

You can register online at http://www.rgvbf.org/ through October 26. Registration can also be done by phone by calling 956-423-5565, ext. 223, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and ask for Courtney. Walk-in registration will be available as well, but many trips may be sold out, so early registration is encouraged.

For more information and a full schedule of events, go to http://www.rgvbf.org/.