We're still here, going strong, and planning for the future

I’m not sure why in late August we get inspired to add to our News Page, but it’s true, it’s been a year since we’ve posted here! Probably because August is a slow time for us in terms of guiding, a time of year when we spend lots of time planning and organizing for the year(s) ahead.

We have big plans for the future, but for now we are gearing up for our half-day scheduled trips in the Chicago area, which start this week. There are only a few spots available across the season.

Before the year is out, we Adam will be returning to Mexico for a tour that includes one of the world’s greatest migration spectacles, the River of Raptors in Veracruz; we have two short but great North American migration tours (Hawk Ridge, Minnesota, with Steve, and Cape May, New Jersey, with Jason); plus we will finally be running our very last pandemic-delayed tour, to South Africa with Josh! The cherry on top is a private tour, also with Josh, to Madagascar!

This past weekend, Josh helped lead trips for the Illinois Ornithological Society’s Shorebird Weekend. Our upcoming tour of Veracruz, Mexico, is with our friends from IOS.

Birding travel birding!

You might not know it from the lack of updates here, but we’ve had a very busy spring and summer! With about 30 days trips in the Chicago area this spring, plus two weekend trips farther afield in Illinois, and trips to Texas, Colombia, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, and South Africa, we’ve been at it! We’re looking forward to continuing this trend.

In that vein, check out our upcoming schedule of day trips. There are also a few longer upcoming trips that still have spots available, going to some of the best hotspots in Illinois and North America: Hawk Ridge, Minnesota, Sept. 15-19 for the peak of fall migration (1 spot); Cape May, New Jersey, Sept. 29 - Oct. 3 during fall bird and monarch migration season (1 spot); our Shorebird Special Weekend, Sept. 9-11, to Emiquon in Central Illinois (3 spots); and our newly added Magic Stump Prairie Falcon Movie Special, December 2-4.

A Red-shouldered Hawk visited Josh’s backyard in Evanston recently. Some of our local trips stop by his yard to see what’s around.

A Busy Start to Spring

It has been a busy start to our year at Red Hill Birding!  As the world continues to open up and restrictions ease, we have been cautiously optimistic about 2022 and beyond. In fact, in the middle of March, all three of Red Hill Birding’s primary guides (Josh, Adam & Nathan) were out leading private tours in tropical regions. It was a welcome sign of things to come.  

 We are excited to be heading into the peak of our spring season in Chicago. Our local half-day trips are up and running, and a select few still have some openings, which you can view and register for HERE. Our spring birding weekends (view and register for HERE) still have some spots open for our quickly approaching trips to Pere Marquette and the Mississippi Palisades. Lastly, we are preparing for field trips and talks on our inaugural visit to the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival! If you are headed to the festival, come bird with us in the mornings at Longshore Tower Big Sit, and be sure to visit us in the vendor tent.  It’s hard to beat spring migration in Chicagoland and we look forward to witnessing the magic of migration together.

Watching pelicans at sunset on our Mississippi Palisades weekend in late spring last year.

Holiday season is upon us

As we enter the 2021’s final stretch, we are reflecting back on another very strange year in virtually all aspects of life, but especially in the tourism industry. We are happy to say that this year was much better than 2020, when virtually all out-of-state trips were canceled or postponed. We ran trips in 2021 to familiar destinations like Minnesota in Winter (for the fifth straight year), Montana, Texas, Cape May, and around our home state of Illinois. We also added new destinations, including domestic hotspots like Southeast Arizona, Minnesota in Summer, and California, and some fantastic international trips to Mexico and Costa Rica.

The world is not out of the woods yet in terms of COVID-19 (you can see our semi-regular updates on how our tours are coping here), and there is even indications that things may get worse (again) before they get better. But we are planning for a big 2022, with expanded offerings within the US especially, but also outside the country. We are keeping an eye all all things COVID, but we are hopeful it won’t hamper us too much so that we can continue doing what we love and sharing the world’s birds and natural wonders with our fantastic clients. See you all in 2022!

Birding in the mountain forests of Oaxaca, Mexico. July 2021. Photo by Adam Sell.

Despite what you might think....

….from looking at this page, we’ve actually been very busy!

In April, we started up out-of-state group trips again, with back-to-back Upper Texas Coast Spring Migration tours! These tours continue this month with back-to-back Montana & Yellowstone trips.

We also ran a busy schedule of local trips around the Chicago area and northern Illinois—between the last weekend in April and first weekend in June, we ran 22 day trips, 3 weekend trips, and 2 big days! Thanks is due to the 135 participants on these trips and 7 different guides who led them!

We will be back with additional local day trips this fall. In the meantime, check out our upcoming Illinois weekend trips and our upcoming out-of-state schedule. We also have trip reports posted from our recent weekend trips, and hope to have the reports from our Texas trips posted soon.

Wood Duck family by Adam Sell on our latest Mississippi Palisades & Lost Mound Weekend

Finally....a new trip report!

We’ve recently completed our very first pandemic-era out-of-state trip, to one of our regular and favorite winter birding destinations, the snowy wilds of Northeast Minnesota. It was a great (and safe!) trip that featured almost all of the birds you hope to see when you go to that part of the world in winter. We had great experiences with Great Gray Owls, a beautiful Northern Hawk Owl, an up-close-and-personal Black-backed Woodpecker, Spruce and Ruffed Grouse on the side of the road, and bird feeders that featured Boreal Chickadee, Hoary Redpoll, Pine & Evening Grosbeaks, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Black-billed Magpie, and Canada Jay. Check out the trip report for details and visit the photo gallery to see the amazing photo opportunities that this trip offers! Then contact us to plan your pandemic-safe trip to the Northwoods!

We came across this Great Gray Owl hunting in a field as we were driving backroads near Two Harbors. What a bird! Photo by Josh Engel.

2021 Trip Schedule updates

With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, all of our 2020 tours (though January 2021, in fact) have been rescheduled. This includes both scheduled and private tours. We have finally updated our Tour Schedule page to reflect the new dates of these postponed trips and we are accepting new registrations. We are only adding a few scheduled trips for 2022 with the expectation that we will be postponing further trips. However, we are happy to plan private trips, so please get in touch with us to start planning.

A Ruby-crowned Kinglet from this fall.