2026 Field Trips
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Learn more about our guides and the real-time sightings they share during the festival HERE!
Learn more about our guides and the real-time sightings they share during the festival HERE!
Van Trips
With small groups (just ten participants per van), knowledgeable leaders, and excellent value, these field trips offer outstanding birding and create lasting memories. Two experienced leaders guide each trip, sharing the best birding the region has to offer while keeping the group on pace and safely transporting everyone between locations.
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You Drive / We Lead
Our You Drive/We Lead trips let you meet an expert guide on site for a three-hour birding experience, no van required. These trips are affordable, fun, and flexible, allowing you to travel with all your birding gear, enjoy your own music, and stay comfortable in your own vehicle while learning from a knowledgeable leader in the field.
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Accessible Field Trips
Black Swamp Bird Observatory is proud to offer a series of accessible field trips during the Biggest Week In American Birding. These field trips will move at the speed of the slowest birder to ensure no one is left behind. Accessible bathrooms and parking will be available at each site. Loaner binoculars will be available for use. We will have skilled leaders for these trips, some of whom are disabled
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Inclusive Field Trips
Birding enriches the lives of millions through the beauty of birds, their songs, and the places they call home. It is an experience meant for everyone. These trips are designed to create a welcoming space for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC birders, while also inviting allies to join in learning, listening, and exploring together. By introducing new birders to the outdoors and uplifting voices that have too often gone unheard, we are helping build a birding community that is more inclusive, vibrant, and reflective of the world around us.
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Beginning Birding
You’ve decided birding sounds interesting and you’d like to give it a try. What do you do next? This fun, easy, and welcoming introductory workshop is designed to help you take your very first steps into birding with confidence. These free field trips require no registration, making them an easy, low-commitment way to explore a new hobby.
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Keynote Field Trips
Join us for a special series of guided birding field trips during the Biggest Week, where participants head into the field alongside this year’s keynote speakers. These outings offer a chance to learn directly from some of the most inspiring voices in birding while exploring prime migration hotspots. Best of all, 100% of the proceeds support the Ohio Young Birders Club, helping nurture the next generation of birders and conservationists.
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Young Birder Field Trips
Join members of Black Swamp Bird Observatory's Ohio Young Birders Club (OYBC) for a morning of birding at the famous Magee Marsh Wildlife Area! This event provides students the opportunity to socialize and go birding with other birders their age. The OYBC is excited to host this event for ALL birders 18 and under, not just members of the club. To learn more about the OYBC, visit the Ohio Young Birders Club website.
Magee Marsh Guided Trips
Black Swamp Bird Observatory has dubbed the Oak Harbor, OH “The Warbler Capital of the World," and with just a brief visit anytime from early to mid-May you'll discover why! Free with festival registration, these trips were created to both reduce crowding on the boardwalk and introduce birders to the many other wonderful birding locations within the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area.
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Woodcocks on the Wing
The American Woodcock is a widespread, common, yet difficult-to-see species in the region. At night, however, they begin to display and make themselves known. This field trip is designed to witness every stage of this display. Birds will begin by vocalizing from the ground before taking off into an aerial display that lasts about a minute at a time. American Woodcocks will carry this on many times throughout the evening, and the hope is that the group gets to experience this several times.
Site Guide Library
Read the Biggest Week in American Birding Field Trip Site Guides! This library of resources helps share information about one of the most popular aspects of the festival. In these site guides, you will find information about the locations the trips visit, accessibility information, meeting locations, target species, and how to get your eBird checklists following the trip.
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