Wings of Spring!

April and May bring several marvelous events for us at the Audubon Center at Riverlands, but Wings of Spring is the most remarkable so far. In partnership with St. Louis Audubon and Forest Park Forever, we hosted a birding trolley tour of Forest Park and were joined by several environmental organizations with informational booths.

Then we took our migration message to area 4th and 5th graders from both sides of the mighty Mississippi. All told we had almost 450 students from 6 schools attend our field days at parks throughout the region! Several parners helped us pull it off, including St. Louis Audubon, the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, SIUE, and Sierra Club. Students joined us for a full day of activities that included things like the Great Migration Challenge game, the Mississippi flyway, bird adaptations related to habitat and food, bird morphology, and empowered students with environmentally and bird friendly choices we can all make in our daily lives. Clean water, native plants, and no pesticides = healthy birds (and people too!)

Saturday, May 8 is International Migratory Bird Day ( http://www.birdday.org/ ). We celebrated the culmination of our Wings of Spring efforts with our second public festival day, this time at the National Great Rivers Museum in Alton, IL and at Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary in West Alton, MO. We celebrated the talented winners of our art contest with a ceremony and awards that included certificates, binoculars, and stained glass art. The students seemed to have a good time and I enjoyed the opportunity to acknowledge their efforts in front of their family, friends, and peers! Scoop the American White Pelican put on several shows for our visitors. He is a resident at the World Bird Sanctuary and never fails to delight and educate when he visits with his talented trainers. Several bird walks were attended at Riverlands, and we are pleased to have welcomed so many first time visitors this year!

Please do what you can to protect and support migrating birds on their epic journeys!