3rd annual Hammock Coast® Birding Festival attracts enthusiasts from around the country

3rd annual Hammock Coast® Birding Festival attracts enthusiasts from around the country

Two new tour locations, an extra day of touring, new art workshops, and great weather all came together to make the third annual Hammock Coast Birding Festival the best one yet, according to tourgoers.

The third annual Hammock Coast Birding Festival, a four-day celebration and exploration of birding in Georgetown County, South Carolina, was held from Feb. 6-9 and included tours at Brookgreen Gardens, Huntington Beach State Park, Hobcaw Barony, and the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center. New additions this year were also tours at the Black River Cypress Preserve and, surprisingly for some, the Georgetown County Landfill.

Organized by the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce and South Carolina’s Hammock Coast®, this year’s festival followed the successful inaugural 2023 event and the second event in 2024, also held in February when winter migrants converge on the Hammock Coast in large numbers. The festival offers birdwatchers, or “birders,” a chance to experience guided tours and programs at nature preserves and other locations in the area.

Mark A. Stevens, director of tourism development for the Georgetown County Chamber and the Hammock Coast, is the main organizer for the event.

“We were happy, once again, to see so many birders from far and wide come to experience birding on South Carolina’s Hammock Coast,” Stevens said. “Many of our attendees were returning for their second or third time, which shows us that this festival is becoming a beloved tradition on the Hammock Coast.”

Past festivals have attracted birdwatchers from as far away as Rhode Island, California and Oregon, and even Canada, and this year saw attendees from Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming, and Indiana, all new states for the Hammock Coast Birding Festival.

During the festival, each tour location has areas that can attract a variety of birds, from songbirds, ducks, wading birds like herons, and raptors, such as eagles and hawks. The endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, which has habitat at Brookgreen, Yawkey and Hobcaw, was seen this year by several of the attendees, and many reported “life birds,” a term used when logging the first time seeing a specific species.

In addition to tours, the festival also included a showing of “Purple Haze: A Conservation Film,” a documentary about Purple Martins by South Carolinian filmmaker Zach Steinhauser, at the Waccamaw Neck Public Library; a program at the state park featuring an owl, kite, hawk, and White Pelicans presented by the Center for Birds of Prey; classes in birding photography by Colin Hocking; an art class titled “Feathers from Above” with award-winning artist Ronald Navroski for painting on real feathers; and a lecture by Steve Harris, author of “Raptor Guest”; and a concluding program on Sunday by Brookgreen Gardens’ staff on conservation efforts and the care of birds at the Lowcountry Zoo.

The Georgetown County Watercolor Society also held an bird art show on historic Pawleys Island as part of the festival.

One of the new tours this year was at the Black River Cypress Preserve, a privately owned nature preserve located on South Carolina’s Scenic Black River. The Cypress Preserve—with its companion Black River property, the Peninsula Tract—are key conservation projects for Butler Conservation. These two properties offer abundant opportunities for outdoor recreation, education, and research in naturally beautiful and diverse ecosystems.

The other new tour, called “Trash and National Treasures,” was at the Georgetown County Landfill, which attracts many different types of birds, but most notably Bald Eagles. Tourgoers who went on this tour said it was awesome to see so many bald eagles in one place.

“I thought it was fabulous,” Camilla Herlevich from Wilmington, North Carolina, said. “There were more birds than I had anticipated, especially bald eagles.”

Toni Stanton, also from Wilmington, said she loved seeing the eagles, but a life bird caught her eye during the tour.

“It was my first Kestrel, which was really exciting,” she said. “And to see so many was really amazing.”

One of the highlights was a Friday evening dinner at Pawleys Plantation featuring a keynote address by Emmy Award-winning host and acclaimed educator Dr. Patrick McMillan, who told attendees just how lucky they were to be on the Hammock Coast, recognized as one of the best birding sites on the East Coast, and how important birds are to the future of the world. He shared a story about finding sugar maple trees, which are not usually found in the area, growing on a sea island on the coast of South Carolina.

“One person threw down a bucket full of oyster shells and now it has changed the trees, the insects that grow on the trees, the birds that eat the insects on those trees, and they increased the biodiversity of our area,” McMillan said. “Think about that for a minute: throw down a shell and you change the world.”

He told the crowd of birders that the choices they make every day are much bigger and more poignant than they think.

“The world never forgets you,” he said. “You are so important.”

It doesn’t just pertain to what you grow in your garden or what you put in your soil, he said, but it also includes the words you say to other people in your life.

“The older I get, the more I know those words that come out of your mouth are so powerful,” McMillan said. “They can hurt, they can heal, and they can carry on long after we are gone.

“Be good to each other, love each other, love the place that you live in and the place you’re visiting. Hopefully it has taught you more than just a new bird.”

And, overwhelmingly, the tourgoers were excited to be on the Hammock Coast – and enjoying warmer-than-expected February weather.

Lenny Mull came from Rock Hill, South Carolina, with a friend Janeane White to attend the event for the third time. He said the weather was great and it was a good event.

“The birds were really active this year,” he said. “They were better than the last one, but lots better than the first one.”

An avid photographer, Mull said he took a lot of great photos of birds he has only seen on the Hammock Coast. His favorte photos included pintail ducks, wood ducks and wild turkeys.

He said that he and White will try to come back for next year’s festival.

“We would love to come back for a fourth time,” he said. “The scenery was great, the pictures I have gotten have been awesome, and the food’s been good.”

Duane Woolbright from Central, South Carolina, was here for the first time. He was excited that he had the opportunity to see four Red-cockaded Woodpeckers at Yawkey Wildlife Center, among other birds.

“We were expecting to see marsh birds and waterfowl, but toward the end of the day we stopped and looked where they have white bands on the trees,” he said. “We saw three of them and then another one. Everybody stopped and watched them like that was the best thing that ever happened.”

He said that the Red-cockaded Woodpecker was a life bird for him and several others on that tour.

“That was the fourth location we could’ve possibly seen them,” Woolbright said. “I thought they were hiding them from me to make sure I come back next year and there they were. I’ll come back in 2026 because I’ve got to see five next year.”

Dave Hanscom of Park City, Utah, was at the festival for the first time also. He travels around the country for birding adventures and has now visited all the “lower 48” states. He is now determined to go to Alaska and Hawaii to complete all 50 states.

He said he was on the tour at Yawkey and saw the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, too. But he was most excited about a Roseate Spoonbill and a Wood Stork at Yawkey.

“They aren’t life birds for me, but they are the only ones I saw on this trip,” he said. “This is a great place with an amazing amount of birds and this isn’t even the peak season.”

Randy Cecil, a member of the Greenville County (South Carolina) Birding Club, said she was ecstatic to see red-cockaded woodpeckers at Brookgreen Gardens during a Longleaf Pine tour.

“It was wonderful because they are absolutely beautiful birds,” she said. “We saw them where they have nesting trees marked with circular white paint. We had to stand still for about 10 minutes and sure enough they came out and were all up in the trees.”

Betsy Lewis from Pickens, South Carolina, was here for her third time.

“It’s been great, and it is always great,” she said. “It is such a pleasure to come to these beautiful venues, and I was really delighted to get to see the Black River Cypress Preserve, which is so beautiful.”

She said she is amazed that so much pristine land has been preserved on the Hammock Coast. She was excited to see many types of birds, including a Roseate Spoonbill.

“I’m very happy about that because that is a life bird for me,” she said. “And even though it is not a life bird for me, I was also excited to see a Red-cockaded Woodpecker.”

Candace Morgan from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said she was thrilled to see a life bird on the Hobcaw Barony tour.

“The very last stop that we made before we went back to leave, there was a Rusty Blackbird in amongst a bunch of Red-winged Blackbirds,” she said. “I was very excited.”

And that attitude — the thrill of seeing birds and exploring nature – is what makes the Hammock Coast a special place on the South Carolina coast.

Beth Stedman, president and chief executive officer of the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce, said she looks forward to many more years of the Hammock Coast Birding Festival.

“The people who come to the Hammock Coast for our Birding Festival are so friendly and enthusiastic about birding,” Stedman said. “They respect nature and our beautiful area that’s home to hundreds of species of birds throughout the year. The Hammock Coast is the perfect place for this and other eco-tourism events.”

To find out more about the 2026 festival, follow the Hammock Coast on social media and look for updates HERE.

By Clayton Stairs / tourism manager for the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce and South Carolina’s Hammock Coast®

Background photos by Colin Hocking.