Coming up on its eighth year, the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival is good get away for birders. Of course, a chance to visit Salt Lake City isn’t so bad either.

Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival

The Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival is both a mouthful and a great event. Close to Salt Lake City, but actually centered in Farmington, Utah, the festival is put on by the Davis County Tourism agency and typically runs for five days in the last two weeks of May each year.

As with many birding festivals, the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival offers workshops for kids and adults. Workshops include everything from building bird houses, birding for kids, and lectures on a variety of bird species with physical birds present.

Of course, field trips are the key to any bird watching festival and Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival doesn’t disappoint. Traditional sighting trips can be taken on land. The added bonus, however, is the fact birders can rent kayaks to float about the lake looking for new life birds.

Common Sightings

While each year will present variations, a birder can expect to see a variety of bird species at the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival. A variety of Heron, Pelican, Grebe and Cormorant species are plentiful. White-faced Ibis and Snowy Egrets are also often seen as are a variety of geese and ducks. A variety of falcons and hawks are surprisingly plentiful, but there is one prize sure to make it on you life list.

The rare American Bald Eagle lives in the area. Due to low population numbers, there is no guarantee you’ll see one, but at least four sightings occurred at the 2004 festival.

Whether you attend for the chance to see a bald eagle or the chance to meet other enthusiasts, the Great Salt Lake Bird Watching Festival is a good time.

Rick Chapo is with Nomad Journals - makers of diary and writing journals. Bird watching journals are great bird watching gifts for bird watching tours and vacations. Visit NomadJournalTrips.com for more bird watching articles.

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