Alabama -  A Great Bird Watching Destination

On the coast at Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge, in coastal Baldwin County,  is one of the most important stopover sites in the United States for tropical migratory birds.

This flight path extends into Mobile and out to Dauphin Island as the birds come and go across the Gulf of Mexico as seasons change.

The Bon Secour refuge on Fort Morgan Peninsula is on the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail and is in one of the giant circles for Audubon's annual Christmas bird count, which ended January 5.

Shore birds like herons, pelicans, gulls and egrets are found along the waterfront stops of the trail this time of year, along with birds that Northerners are used to seeing in their backyards in the summer -- cardinals, bluejays, robins and hummingbirds, according to Bebe Gauntt, public relations manager for the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau. Ospreys arrive in late winter, and sea turtles nest here in the summer and hatch in the late summer and early fall.

In the spring, visitors can watch bird-banding  at the Fort Morgan State Historic Site, a pre-Civil War fort on Pleasure Island near the towns of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. The group sets up a banding station complete with fine nets to capture the birds and track their migration as a way of promoting environmental conservation.

Last year, more than 3,000 people from 35 states attended the bird-banding, according to the group's co-founder, Bob Sargent. This spring, the event is scheduled to take place from April 3 to 17. Spectators don't even need binoculars to see and photograph the tanagers, warblers and other birds -- all in their showiest breeding plumage -- up close;

Using U.S. Census data, the officials estimate that about 703,000 people took part in bird-watching in Alabama in 2001.

And the numbers appear to be growing. Last spring, 16.8 percent of vacationers in Alabama visited the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge, up from 6.4 percent in 2001.

Officials at the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, pointing to the economic success of the coastal birding trail, are completing the North Alabama Birding Trail, which will go through 12 counties. The project, with about 50 sites, began Sept. 10 and could be finished by spring 2005.