Birmingham Audubon Society Spring Tours
Every other year or so BAS organizes a Spring Tour to some destination of natural-history interest in the Southeast. The tours are generally from three- to five-days duration, and the cost covers all lodging, meals, snacks, transportation, entries, gratuities, etc. We travel by bus, so even the driving is furnished. There are typically two sessions of the same trip with 40 people and 4 leaders in each.
Our most recent Spring Tour was to the Low Country of South Carolina. To learn more about the areas we visited, click here for more details.
For a slide show of the Low Country trip, click here. Pictures are taken by Greg Harber, one of the trip leaders.
From time to time people ask us how long we have been taking tours and where have we gone. Here is the story.
Walter Coxe, a former president of BAS and grand-idea man, put forth his strong insight that we live in the most beautiful place in the world and that we should get to know it. This was 1977, and National Audubon had just managed to save and acquire a part of Four Holes Swamp and the Francis Beidler Forest in lowland South Carolina. Walter proposed that we should go to see it. He hired a bus in the spring of 1978 and arranged for us to stay 2 nights at an Episcopal Church camp on Edisto Island. We visited the swamp, toured Charleston, birded on the shoreline of the Edisto River, and visited one of Charleston's beautiful gardens. Everyone had a wonderful time, and we have been doing tours ever since.
The complete list of Spring Tours follows. How many have you been on, and who has been on the most?
Audubon Spring Tours
1978 - 2008
___________________
1978 Four Holes Swamp, South Carolina
(Four Holes Swamp, Charleston, Edisto River)
1979 Southwest Louisiana
(Oakley Plantation, St. Francisville, St. Martinville, Avery Island)
1980 Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia
(Waycross Park, Suwanee Canal and Chesser Prairie, Billy's Island State Park entrances, day trip to Cumberland Island)
1981 Apalachicola, Florida
(St. George Island, Apalachicola River)
1982 Alabama the Beautiful
(Tennessee River Valley Chattanooga to Florence, Natchez Trace to Columbia, Tennessee)
1985 Wakulla Springs/St. Mark's Refuge, Florida (our only winter "spring Tour")
(Wakulla Springs Run)
1986 Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee
(Mississippi River barge trip from Hickman, Kentucky, to New Madrid, Missouri, and Big Tree State Park, Missouri)
1987 Mississippi Gulf Coast
(Horn Island, Pascagoula, Pascagoula River, Ocean Springs, Biloxi)
1988 North Central Florida
(Ichetucknee Springs, Payne's Prairie, Cross Creek and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings house, Mt. Dora,
St. John's River from Samford to Palatka )
1989 Golden Isles of Georgia - I
(Little St. Simon's/St. Simon's/Sea/Jekyll Islands)
1990 Golden Isles of Georgia - II
(Sapelo Island, Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge, Savannah)
1991 North Carolina Mountains
(Eseola Lodge in Linville, Grandfather Mountain, Blue Ridge Parkway, Little Switzerland)
1993 The Ozarks, Arkansas
(Branson, Missouri, Gaston's White River Resort)
1995 North Georgia Mountain
(Rome, New Echota, Fort Mtn, Brasstown Bald, Black Mtn, Tallulah River)
1997 Southwest Louisiana II
(Atchafalaya River, Jefferson Island, Little Pecan Island, Cameron)
2000 Roan Mountain/Cumberland Gap, Tennessee/Kentucky
(Sycamore Shoals at Elizabethtown, Henson Community near Gap, Pine Mtn)
2003 Pelican Island/Sebastian, Florida
(Silver Springs Run)
2006 Where Georgia Meets Florida - Amelia and Cumberland Islands, Greyfield Inn
(Suwanee Canal and Chesser Prairie in Okefenokee Swamp)
2008 The Mississippi Delta
(Holly Springs, Tunica River Park, Greenville, Yazoo NWR, Tara Wildlife Preserve, Pearl River at Jackson)
|
Activities 
