Alabama Audubon announced this week that the sixth annual Black Belt Birding Festival will take place July 31 through August 2, 2026.
The festival highlights the birds, history and heritage of Alabama’s Black Belt region and is designed to “bring together the joy of birding with the benefits of ecotourism to a region of profoundly important ecology and civil rights history,” according to a news release from Alabama Audubon.
Tickets and detailed event information are available at ALAudubon.org.
“We are thrilled that our festival is now attracting birders from across the country,” Dr. Scot Duncan, executive director of Alabama Audubon, said. “With its combination of distinctive birdlife, unique landscapes, and globally significant human rights history, there’s nothing quite like it anywhere. Nowhere else can you see flocks of swallow-tailed kites and wood storks swirling over a landscape where civil rights foot soldiers marched for freedom and democracy.”
The Black Belt is the largest natural grassland region in the eastern United States. Named for its dark prairie soils, the region supports grassland and wetland birds across ranches, farms and restored prairies.
Alabama Audubon’s Black Belt Birding Initiative aims to bring the economic and environmental benefits of bird-based ecotourism to one of the country’s most economically challenged rural areas. Major support for the program comes from Alabama Black Belt Adventures, Alabama Power Foundation, Alabama Department of Tourism, The Daniel Foundation of Alabama and the Drax Foundation.
The festival begins at 5 p.m. Friday, July 31, with a free kickoff event at Project Horseshoe Farm, 1202 Main St. in Greensboro. The regional nonprofit, which focuses on community health, will host a welcome speech by Duncan, live music by Alabama singer-songwriter Rachel Edwards and jazz guitarist John Holaway, and refreshments.
The festival’s 2026 keynote address will be presented by Nate Swick of the American Birding Association at the Greensboro Opera House on Saturday, August 1.
Swick hosts the weekly podcast “The American Birding Podcast,” which features conversations with birding experts and enthusiasts, as well as rare bird roundups and bird news. He is the author of “A Beginner’s Guide to Birding” and the “ABA Field Guide to Birds of the Carolinas.” He also serves on the North Carolina Bird Records Committee, which he previously chaired, and is an eBird reviewer for the state.
Guided field trips begin Saturday morning across Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Marengo, Perry, Sumter and Wilcox counties. Events include birding from a 100-foot tower designed by Auburn University’s Rural Studio at Perry Lakes Park near Marion, and a beginner’s bird walk in Selma that also explores the region’s role in the Civil Rights Movement with Terry Chestnut Jr., whose father was Alabama’s first Black lawyer and represented the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Joe Farm, a fourth-generation Black-owned cattle ranch, is among the weekend’s most popular events. There, swallow-tailed kites and Mississippi kites swoop behind Cornelius Joe’s tractor to snatch insects from the air. The Joe Farm has been featured internationally as a premier birding destination in Alabama, with coverage from BBC Travel, NatGeo’s “Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper,” and, most recently, Living Bird, the magazine of Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology.
Birding and local history, culture and ecology events continue Sunday, including programs at Old Cahawba Archaeological Park, a trip to the Hall Family Farm—a Dallas County campsite used by foot soldiers during the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March for civil rights—and a canoe birding partnership with the Cahaba River Society on the oxbow lakes at Perry Lakes Park.
With 30 events scheduled across the weekend, attendees can build their own itineraries.
Throughout the weekend, visitors and Black Belt residents can also attend community-based programming, including bird-related fine art at Aaron Sanders Head’s Sumac Cottage, 1107 South St. in Greensboro, and the Engle Gallery, 1301 Main St. in Greensboro. A special historic exhibit, “Feathers in Fashion,” will be on display at Magnolia Grove, 1002 Hobson St. in Greensboro, in collaboration with the Alabama Historical Commission and guest curator Ian Crawford of the University of Alabama’s Department of Clothing, Textiles and Interior Design.
“We’re proud to support Alabama Audubon in this festival, which continues to demonstrate that birding in Alabama’s Black Belt is a powerful tourism driver,” Pam Swanner, director of the Alabama Black Belt Adventures Association, said. “The festival’s growth year after year generates sustainable revenue for our rural communities, directly supporting the livelihoods of those who live and work here. The national and international attention it attracts delivers a strong return on investment—earning the kind of high-value exposure that traditional advertising simply can’t match.”
Alabama Audubon is inviting birders of all ages, skill levels, abilities and interests to join what it called “an unforgettable weekend in the beautiful Black Belt region of Alabama, where opportunities to experience, learn, and bird abound!”
