Farewell to Houston Bird Week 2021!

Another Bird Week has come and gone. Houston Audubon’s third annual Bird Week was another resounding success made possible thanks to our great partner organizations, volunteers, and participants. The third annual Bird Week featured 39 events from 21 different organizations. Collectively, we had almost 2,000 people participate in our calendar of in-person and virtual events. The events this year ranged from bird walks and kid-centered programming, to trash cleanups, to our first annual AviChat research symposium. We featured our first annual Houston Audubon “Flock Together” Photo Contest, during Bird Week which received 258 photo submissions from 144 different people. The Cullinan Park Conservancy’s bird hike events were even featured in the Fort Bend Star. Bird Week 2021 had it all!

We appreciate everyone who came out to the events and supported the different organizations. We were thrilled that there were many new birders and hope these folks were inspired to continue to be involved in the great conservation organizations in the Houston and Upper Gulf Coast region.

Are you bummed you couldn’t be in on the fun or make it to certain virtual events? Have no fear! We have recorded our Bird Week classes and AviChat presentations, which you can find on our YouTube channel (be sure to subscribe)!

• The brand new AviChat symposium was our first informal science symposium with presentations from researchers about bird conservation.
• Bird Photography 101 was presented by Houston Audubon’s very own Young Professionals Advisory Council (YPAC) member Cameron Kirkpatrick and gave a great overview of how to get started in bird photography.
• Birdwatching 101 was presented by the president-elect of Houston Audubon’s YPAC, Carl Nooteboom, as a great way for breaking into the birding hobby and learning the basics.
• Bird-Friendly Basics was a fantastic presentation by Houston Audubon Conservation Specialist Anna Vallery and YPAC Member Chris Bick (whose yard transformation is legendary, seriously, check out his Audublog post here) that discussed how you can be more bird-friendly at home.

Thank you to all of our partners for helping us offer a wonderful calendar of events with something for everyone! We look forward to another great year with Bird Week 2022 and hope to see you then. But for those impatient for next Bird Week be sure to check out Houston Audubon’s social media and website for more events and ways to get involved.