Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Indiana Dunes Birding Festival Receives Mindful Birding Award

Magnolia Warblers are among a variety of warblers and other migratory songbirds that birders will enjoy during the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival.

The Indiana Dunes Birding Festival, hosted by Indiana Audubon, is the recipient of a 2020 Mindful Birding Award for its efforts to promote bird conservation and ethical birding guidelines through their annual event that showcases the abundance and variety of migratory birds in the Indiana Dunes region bordering Lake Michigan. The festival was also recognized for its commitment to ethical birding behavior by adopting and adhering to a code of birding ethics marked by clarity, specifics, and restraint. This year’s festival will be held from May 14 to 17.

Each year the Festival Stewardship Fund raises money for conservation, education, and research projects. This year’s Festival Stewardship Fund will raise finances to assist the continuing Piping Plover monitoring project in the Chicago region of Lake Michigan.

Mindful Birding is a charitable project of the Morrissey Family Foundation that promotes ethical birding guidelines around the world and offers awards to birding festivals that demonstrate improved or superior birding ethics. To review their ethical birding guidelines, and see past award recipients, visit the Mindful Birding website at www.mindfulbirding.org

The 2020 Indiana Dunes Birding Festival activities include more than 150 birding trips, programs, workshops, and social events. The festival is co-hosted by the Indiana Dunes National Park and Indiana Dunes State Park, and includes a consortium of environmental organizations as festival sponsors. Registration for this year’s festival has already begun at https://indunesbirdingfestival.com/