Saturday, May 3rd, Jaime and I attended the 1st Annual Queen City Bird Festival held at the College of Mt. St. Joseph in Delhi, OH. The event was put together by Dr. Jill Russell (prof. at MTSTJ), executive director of The Avian Research and Education Institute (AREI).
The day started out with heavy rain and 25mph winds. It was decided to move the vendors/exhibitors into the small Earth House on the campus. Many local environmental organizations and businesses participated, including Dr. Jon Seymour from Oxbow, Inc, and Susan with raptors from Raptor, Inc. It was too crowded for me to spend much time in the Earth House. It seemed as if the weather would not break, but by noon, the sun came out and the day was nice. This allowed for mist nets to be set up behind the Earth House. Some of the birds below were caught at the new Clifford Bird Observatory which is located in the cemetery behind the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse. Here are a few pictures of birds from that day.
The day started out with heavy rain and 25mph winds. It was decided to move the vendors/exhibitors into the small Earth House on the campus. Many local environmental organizations and businesses participated, including Dr. Jon Seymour from Oxbow, Inc, and Susan with raptors from Raptor, Inc. It was too crowded for me to spend much time in the Earth House. It seemed as if the weather would not break, but by noon, the sun came out and the day was nice. This allowed for mist nets to be set up behind the Earth House. Some of the birds below were caught at the new Clifford Bird Observatory which is located in the cemetery behind the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse. Here are a few pictures of birds from that day.
1st Bird of the day, Tufted Titmouse.
Female Eastern Towhee
Probably the best bird of the day, a breeding plumage male Orchard Oriole.
A very fat (ready to go) White-throated Sparrow (tan stripe) (fat: 5!)
Visitors watching a male Northern Cardinal get banded.
And the cardinal protesting.Even with all the rain, they had 86 participants! Nice number considering the weather. Again, the Russells are to be commended for taking the lead in educating our youth.
Donald:
ReplyDeleteI am finally able to read your blog! Everything I tried to access it through my Compuserve account, I could get the template, but could not see the posts.
Finally, today, I decided to try it using Mozilla as my browser instead of IE 7. Success! I found you.
Wish I could have made it to the Queen City program. Looks like ti was a good time.
See you in the field,
~Kathi
Donald,
ReplyDeleteIf you enjoy last year than be there for our second year of QCBF, and Kathi we hope you make it as well.
Deb
Second Annual QUEEN CITY BIRD FESTIVAL 2009
Come out to celebrate the beauty of spring, birds and nature. The day begins with a bird walk. The second annual Queen City Bird Festival is hosted by the College of Mount St. Joseph, the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati and the Avian Research and Education Institute. Join us at Hueston Woods State Park Nature Center, 6301 Park Office Rd., College Corner, Ohio; on Saturday, May 16th from 9am to 6pm; and Sunday, May 17th from 9am to noon. The 2009 schedule of events will be available on www.avianinstitute.org .
Open to birders as well as the general public, the event features:
• Numerous activities for children
• Guest speakers on bird migration, bird banding and where to bird watch
• A variety of food and merchandise vendors
• Local conservation groups
• Live music
• Hourly bird walks
• Bird banding demonstration
Jill & Dave Russell, Directors of the Avian Research and Education Institute are co-organizers and sponsors of the Queen City Bird Festival. They are federally licensed bird banders and long-time birders who regularly provide educational seminars and lead birding trips internationally.
For further information please contact Jill Russell at 513-244-4783, jrussell@avianinstitute.org or Debbie Gross, Communications 513-255-5313.