VENT's 30th Anniversary Celebration Apr 26—May 01, 2006
Posted by Barry Lyon
Barry Lyon
Barry Lyon's passion for the outdoors and birding has its roots in his childhood where he grew up in southern California. He attended several VENT/ABA youth birding cam...Related Trips
Quinta Mazatlan, McAllen, Texas, April 30, 2006. When Victor Emanuel stepped away from the microphone, his closing remarks completed, people rose from their chairs and began filing out of the courtyard, and the 30th Anniversary Celebration of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours came to a close. As participants meandered back to the hotel, with some pausing to talk and others seeking a last stroll through the gallery, it was finally time to step back and reflect on the happiness and excitement that surrounded the largest event ever held by VENT.
And what a party it was! In attendance were 14 full and part-time tour leaders, four guest leaders, four outstanding guest speakers, and six staff members from the home office, along with 103 participants. The beautiful facility of Quinta Mazatlan highlighted a collection of innumerable world-class birding areas, and four days of field trips produced a final list of 246 species of birds.
The celebration was an auspicious, multifaceted event in which daily field trips to all the major regions of the Lower Rio Grande Valley were the centerpiece. Each afternoon leaders and participants returned from the field glowing with reports of exciting birds seen, life birds found, and rare birds discovered. Springtime is the best time of year to be in South Texas, and our extraordinary birdlist was proof of that. Aside from ALL of the specialty birds of the Valley, our field trips recorded impressive flights of migrating hawks?especially Mississippi Kites, a surprising diversity of eastern songbirds in the lower valley and on the coast, and a handful of genuinely rare birds.
The King Ranch produced solidly over and over again. Ferruginous Pygmy-Owls, Tropical Parulas, Botteri’s Sparrows, and Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets were seen by every participant. Ranch escort, Brian Williams, provided outstanding interpretation of the rich wildlife and human history of the famous ranch. On one day, Laguna Atascosa yielded a tantalizing assortment of eastern songbirds, including Scarlet Tanager and a variety of warblers.
The Sabal Palm Sanctuary and South Padre Island were stellar in productivity day after day. A very rare Gray-crowned Yellowthroat performed on territory for group after group, while the highly sought-after Tamaulipas Crow proved reliable every morning in residential Brownsville. This species has occurred irregularly, at best, in recent years, and was found on a scouting trip just days before the start of the celebration. What great fortune!
The numbers and variety of Neotropical migrants were as fascinating as any other aspect of the birding. Localized deposits of birds throughout the coast and the lower and middle valleys produced such uncommon spring migrants as Black-billed Cuckoo; Yellow-bellied Flycatcher; Gray-cheeked Thrush; and Mourning, MacGillivray’s, Golden-winged, Canada, Bay-breasted, Cerulean, and Kentucky warblers, as well as impressive numbers of grosbeaks, buntings, and orioles. Even a rare Bobolink was spotted the final afternoon on South Padre.
The upper valley was literally chock-full of birds. The Santa Margarita Ranch, with access tightly controlled, but which VENT was granted, was the setting each morning for portions of our group. Sitting atop the dramatic bluffs that overlook a broad sweep of the Rio Grande River, we peered up and down the river, spotting and calling out the wonderful birds of South Texas as they appeared one after another. From all groups came reports of exciting encounters with some of the most localized and hardest-to-find South Texas birds. Muscovies, Red-billed Pigeons, Clay-colored Robins, and Hook-billed Kites were found daily by our sharp-eyed leaders. Nearby Chapeño hosted what may be the last remaining Brown Jays in North America, while the public library in nearby Zapata was unusually productive for the unreliable and difficult-to-find White-collared Seedeater. Throw in such other wonderful resident birds as Chachalacas, Green Jays, Long-billed Thrashers, Olive Sparrows, and Audubon’s and Altamira orioles, and one can see how truly memorable the birding was.
The keynote presentations after dinner each evening featured some of the most prominent personalities from the world of birding and nature. Victor Emanuel’s address to a packed house was a reflection on being a pioneer in the bird tour industry, his outlook on life, birds, and the many friends, employees, and tour participants that have influenced his career for the past 30 years. His reception: two standing ovations.
Peter Matthiessen reminisced on the early years of VENT and delighted the crowd with an account of a trip to China he and Victor had made some years ago. Especially entertaining was Peter’s story of how the two had met years before in New York.
Pete Dunne was as smooth and poised as ever in delivering his evening presentation. “Thirty Important Changes: Recent developments that greatly affected birding,” was an appropriate topic, as VENT has certainly been a major influence on the continued development of birding.
The event culminated in style, with an evening at the elegant Quinta Mazatlan. This property was recently purchased by the city of McAllen and added to the World Birding Center as a satellite location. Formerly a private residence, the restored mansion is now a beautiful facility boasting a gift shop, information center, and art gallery. The grounds are planted with native vegetation, and birding forays by event participants produced more exciting birds. For the 30th Anniversary Celebration, the gallery was decorated with the exquisite artwork of Lars Jonsson, Robert Bateman, and John P. O’Neill. As an added bonus, some of the beautiful works by master sculptor, Kent Ullberg, were on display in the gallery as well. These men are considered among the finest nature artists alive, and we were privileged to have them present at this event.
A silent auction was held, benefiting one of the most effective conservation organizations in South Texas, the Valley Land Fund. Peter Matthiessen, Lars Jonsson, and Robert and Birgit Bateman contributed a host of items, including original paintings, prints, photographs, and signed books. The proceeds from the silent auction were augmented by VENT’s contribution of $50 per Celebration participant. In all, VENT helped raise more than $15,000 for the Valley Land Fund! Thanks to all for this important endeavor.
The luminous evening ended with Scott Weidensaul’s inspirational talk, “Return to Wild America,” which recounted his 2003 adventure around North America, retracing the footsteps of Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher as they went in search of America’s remaining wild places.
For 30 years VENT has lived by three guiding principles: take care of our employees, take care of the people who travel with us, and take care of the environment. There is nothing complicated about it. It is an honest, heartfelt approach to life that is the nature of our business. We are proud of what has been accomplished, and are especially thankful to those people who have trusted us to provide them with the world’s highest quality experiences in nature. Onward we go, into the next 30 years!