Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival
Mini Trip Report
NOVEMBER 2025
I can’t overstate how fun it is to go to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. The birds, the places, the people, the atmosphere created by the festival…it all comes together as something so wonderfully unique.
Here are a few pics I snapped during field trips at private parks, National Wildlife Refuges, ranches, and both sides of the disjunct border wall.
My first trip to the valley was ten years ago, back in my Bird Watcher’s Digest days, and included several nights at the King Ranch—one of those times where my agricultural and environmental worlds collided.
Birding on ag lands happens to me every now and then – at the RGV festival, Birding the Border, and a few places in Colombia, plus in many more places that are mixing smaller scale farming with ecotourism (kinda like at my house!). I’m always looking for those opportunities, and leading more bird and nature trips on sustainably managed farmlands is securely on my long-term wishlist.
But, I digress! This is my sidetracked mind as I think about how crazy it is that I now frequent Texas for these types of things. It was really special to get to lead trips here at RGVBF this year. Above all else, I think what’s best about this event is the connections it fosters by bringing passionate people together. Here’s to that magic and all the work that so many people put in to make it happen, year after year.
