Santa Fe Opera and Birding Festival
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Every year the Santa Fe opera performs 5 separate operas and for one week every year in August, the Santa Fe Opera performs all five operas. For 2019 after the festival week of operas, Renée Fleming will be performing a one-time concert. There will be Southwest birding every day.
If you are a birder and an opera lover, you will not want to miss this event.
- 1) Renée Fleming makes her Santa Fe opera debut singing the Letters of Georgia
- 2) World premier opera by composer Poul Ruders, The Thirteenth Child.
- 3) Birding tours every day in the beautiful state of New Mexico.
- 4) Visiting Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch home and studio in Abiquiu.
- 5) Great southwest cuisine.
- 6) Seeing a great opera every night!
Opera and Birding Schedule
Sunday August 4, Fly to Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Arrival day: You will be greeted at the Albuquerque airport
Monday August 5
- Birding: Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Santa Fe and Cochiti Lake
- Opera: Cosí Fan Tutte (1790) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Tuesday August 6
- Birding: Hyde Memorial State Park and the Santa Fe National Forest
- Dinner: Opera pre-view dinner at the opera house
- Opera: Jenůfa (1904) Leoš Janáček
Wednesday August 7
- Morning birding: Rio Charma Valley, Abiquiu and Carson National Forest
- Afternoon: Georgia O’Keeffe’ s Ghost Ranch and studio in Abiquiu
- Dinner: Tailgate party at the opera
- Opera: La Bohème (1896) Giacomo Puccini
Thursday August 8
- Birding trip: Bandelier National Monument and Valles Caldera National Preserve
- Dinner: Tailgate party at the opera
- Opera: The Pearl Fishers (1863) Georges Bizet
Day 6: Friday August 9
- Birding: Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary, Pecos National Historic site
- Dinner: Tailgate party at the opera
- Opera: The Thirteenth Child (2019 world premier) Poul Ruders
Saturday August 10
- Birding: La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs and surrounding open space
- Concert: Renée Fleming sings “Letters from Georgia” composer Kevin Puts
Sunday August 11
- Departure day: You will be transferred to the Albuquerque airport.
- Group Size: 10 travelers plus guides, spaces left = 4
- Rates per person = $3,870 (based on double occupancy) Single = $4,910
- Rates include: Lodging, breakfast, lunch, dinner, Santa Fe opera tickets for five nights, Renée Fleming concert, daily birding tours, museum and park entrance fees, Allianz travel insurance.
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Daily Birding & Nature Tours
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New Mexico has a lot of great birding locations and birds to see. Last year on this trip, we saw 113 different species of birds. Click here to see the
Bird List
Everyday there will be a morning and afternoon bird walk and trip to a culturally significant site. There will be free time for you to visit the great city of Santa Fe.
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Beautiful Walks
There will be visits to the La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs, the Rio Charma Valley, Santa Fe National Forest, Valles Caldera National Preserve, Bandelier National Monument, Hyde Memorial State Park, Randall Davey Audubon Center, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, Georgia O'Keeffe’ s Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, Pecos National Historic Site and historic walking tours of Santa Fe.
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Audubon Center
At the edge of Santa Fe is the
Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary. Birds to see: Steller's Jay, Spotted Towhee, Northern Mocking Bird, Sage Thrasher, Canyon Towhee, Vesper Sparrow, Northern Roughed-winged Swallows and Yellow-headed Blackbirds.
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We will be staying for seven nights at Pueblo Bonita B&B, located just a 10 minute walk for the historic downtown of Santa Fe. Each room is a small suite with plenty of open space, a sitting area, kitchenette and decorated with beautiful southwest design in an historic adobe building.
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Santa Fe Mountains
About 30 minutes outside of Santa Fe are the arid Ponderosa Pine mountains of the Southwest. This is the southern most area of the Southern Rockies. Home to many unique birds that love the arid west:
Juniper Titmouse, Pinyon Jay,
Cordilleran Flycatcher, Clark' Nutcracker, Mountain Chickadee, Cassin's Finch, Western Tanager and Townsend's Solitaire.
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Georgia
O'Keeffe
The Ghost Ranch, just outside Santa Fe was the home, studio and inspiration for many of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings. The 21,000 acres ranch is and museum is open to the public. We will spend the day here birding and walking and being inspired by this wonderful landscape. Favorite birds here: Black-billed Magpie and the Broad-tailed Hummingbird
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Preview Dinners
The Santa Fe Opera has wonderful pre-opera talks and dinners. For three nights, dinner will be at the opera restaurant and every night we will attend the opera pre-talk discussion.
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Picnic Dinners
The Santa Fe Opera is famous for its "Tailgating" parties before the opera. There will be three nights that we will have a picnic dinner at the opera.
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Every day there will be birding tours to locations within a one-hour radius of Santa Fe and every night, there will be a new opera to see with a final concert by Renée Fleming.
The Santa Fe Opera is an outdoor pavilion that is completely covered and so no concern for getting rained on during the evening rain showers.
One unique and fun aspect of the Santa Fe opera is people show up early and "tailgate" for dinner. The opera house opens the parking lot 3-hours early to accommodate tailgaters. The opera house is located about 15 minutes north of Santa Fe surrounded by a beautiful arid southwest landscape of mesas, pinyon pines, chamisa and sagebrush. The weather in August is perfect; warm and dry during the day and cool, with occasional showers in the evening.
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Call us at 970-556-6103
email: KaiyoteTours@gmail.com
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New Tours for 2019, 2020 and 2021
- Uganda: Birds, Wildlife and a chance to see the Mountain Gorillas and chimpanzees.
- Sarawak and Northern Borneo: Birding and wildlife viewing, including orangutans
- Sri Lanka: The best and most relaxing bird tour you will ever experience
- Nepal: Birding the fantastic Himalayas and a great cultural experience
- Mongolia: Birding the high steppes and staying in traditional "Gers" for lodging
- Korea: Winter birding to view cranes and migrants
- India: Birding for vegetarians, great culture and great food
- Cambodia: Birding and cultural tour
Our favorite places and tours that will continue to be on the schedule
- Iceland: Three great tours in May and the best New Year's Eve trip ever
- Sweden: Christmas tour, Southwest Sweden and the Åland Islands for mid-summers'
- Nicaragua: Our all time favorite place for birding and traveling anytime of year
- Taiwan: A very special place for birding and one of our favorites
- Colombia: Birding the Andes and having a lot of fun
- Argentina: Birds and butterflies, more than you can count
In the United States
- Santa Fe Birding and Opera Festival
- Chicago Lyric Opera and urban birding
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Your Dedicated Guides
Kaiyote & Ed
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Photo: Here we are atop the Empire State Building in New York City last September.
We look forward to showing you all the great birds and wildlife and adventures that can be found around the world, the United States and in Washington state.
Call us anytime! See you soon!
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