Indiana Dunes Birding Festival

Celebrate the migration of birdlife through the Indiana Dunes region this May 14-17 at the sixth annual Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. The festival is a joint partnership with the region’s major environmental groups highlighting the dunes area’s rich biodiversity and bird watching opportunities to create a positive impact on the economic, conservation, and environmental education for visitors and residents to the Indiana Dunes region. The event is being organized by the Indiana Audubon Society and includes both the Indiana Dunes National Park and Indiana Dunes State Park as site hosts.

The four-day festival will include over 150 guided field trips and car pool tours, presentations, workshops, and social events to view and learn about migrating birds within the dunes area, Evening events include special excursions for night birds, and a family friendly “birds and brew” social event on multiple nights. Registration for priority Indiana Audubon Society members begins in early March. Registration can be found online at www.indunesbirdingfestival.com.

2020 Festival Keynote: Scott Weidensaul
A World of Wings: Migratory Birds on a Changing Planet
Saturday 5:30pm – 9:30pm / Sand Creek Country Club, Chesterton, IN
Even as scientists make astounding discoveries about the navigational and physiological feats that enable migratory birds to cross immense oceans or fly above the highest mountains, go weeks without sleep or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch, humans have brought many migrants to the brink. Based on his forthcoming book "A World of Wings," author and researcher Scott Weidensaul takes you around the globe -- with researchers in the lab probing the limits of what migrating birds can do, to the shores of the Yellow Sea in China, the remote mountains of northeastern India where tribal villages saved the greatest gathering of falcons on the planet, and the Mediterranean, where activists and police are battle bird poachers -- to learn how people are fighting to understand and save the world's great bird migrations.

Festival Headliner: Sarah Saunders
Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink
Thursday May 14, 2020 - 11:30am – 12:30pm / Indiana Dunes Visitor Center

Festival Headliner: Hannah and Erik Go Birding!
The Birds Don’t Know They’re Special!
Friday May 15, 2020 - 11:30am – 12:30pm / Indiana Dunes Visitor Center

Festival Headliner: Marc Kramer and Eliana Ardila Ardila
Birding by Bus: Where Van Life Meets Birding
Saturday May 16, 2020 -11:30am – 12:30pm / Indiana Dunes Visitor Center

Festival Headliner: Adriaan Michiel Dokter
3 Billion Birds Lost: A Biodiversity Crisis
Sunday May 17, 2020 - 11:30am – 12:30pm / Indiana Dunes Visitor Center