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The fifth annual Creston Valley Bird Fest

The Creston Valley Bird Fest will take place May 12 – 14, and will offer not only bird watching tours, but also other activities.
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The Creston Valley Bird Fest will take place May 12 – 14.

They are quietly preparing and checking their lists and mapping their routes and booking their rooms, and soon they’ll invade our unsuspecting valley in higher numbers than ever before.  Once here, they will wake early to slip on their all-weather boots before stuffing rain jackets in their daypacks.  They will drive out to various secret spots to lurk in mysterious marshlands, huddle around small ponds or traipse along narrow wooded trails.  They tend to communicate in whispers, but only after they have tilted their heads to better tune into the subtle sounds of nature.  Hauling around heavy cameras and their favourite binoculars, they will make quick notes with golf pencils that are tucked into inside pockets.  They call themselves birders.

The Creston Valley Bird Fest will take place May 12 – 14, and will offer not only bird watching tours, but also other activities from photography workshops to art presentations.  Excited to share this year’s festival line-up, Tanna Patterson and Terry Posynick spoke about the event, now in its fifth year, and what inspired them to get involved.

“I’ve always been attracted to the natural world,” said Patterson, “and birding was just an extension of that.  It really helps to live in the Creston Valley.  This is an amazing place to go birding; over 300 species have been identified here.”

Posynick admits she didn’t get involved in the birding world until meeting Patterson.  “I’m part of this festival because of Tanna’s enthusiasm for birds.  While I appreciated them before, I never really looked at birds like I do now.”

The Bird Fest is a celebration of the birds, art and the agriculture of the Creston Valley.  While participants can tour birding spots by foot, van or by kayak, Patterson and Posynick stress that the festival has branched out over the last five years to include other activities.  “While it is obviously a bird festival, there will be something offered for everyone interested in the natural world,” said Patterson.  “There will be a bat count, star gazing, fly fishing, canoe tours, farm tours, as well as artistic nest building, a photography workshop, an ethno-botany lecture, and various children’s events – thirty-four things to choose from.”

Patterson wasn’t always confident that a bird festival would be successful in Creston.  “We didn’t know what we were doing five years ago, but somehow it worked.  I was hoping maybe fifty people would register.  That would have made me happy.  But we had 130 people register.”

“We have such an amazing committee of dedicated volunteers,” added Posynick.  “We have meetings as early as September, and we are organizing guest speakers and events, updating the website, filling in grant applications, confirming sponsors, and all the other details that go into running a successful festival.”

“We are indebted to so many people,” said Patterson.  “We want to acknowledge Marc-Andre Beaucher and Gillian Cooper and their work with the Osprey Festival that ran out of the wildlife centre for eight years.  Linda Van Damme – who complied the guidebook Creston Valley Birds – gave us such amazing advice.  And there have been so many others.  It really takes a village to run a bird festival.”

The festival has created a lot of out-of-town interest and, with only three weeks until it begins, only 39% of those registered live within the valley.  Local hotels and B&Bs are booking up quickly, and early registration has seen numbers higher than any other year previous.  This year’s festival headliners are partly responsible for that.

Keynote speaker Brian Keating, former Head of Conservation Outreach at the Calgary Zoo, has been leading groups on nature-based travel for three decades.  He’s a weekly guest on both Calgary and Edmonton’s CBC radio and for many years was a regular on the Discovery Channel.  Award-winning nature photographer Monte Comeau will join Janice Arndt, Alison Grover, Tess Stieben, and several others from within and outside the valley.

Both Patterson and Posynick stress the importance of encouraging children to take part in the festival.  “All ages are, of course, welcome to attend but we’re hoping to see more children participate,” said Patterson.  “Spring migration is just awesome and the more I learn about this natural phenomena the more I feel connected to the bigger picture.  And most of us don’t notice it’s happening.”

“It’s important to show younger generations how our impact on the environment directly impacts both local species and the international migratory birds that use our valley,” said Posynick.  “Children are spending less and less time outside, and 80% of Canadian children live in an urban setting.  My hope is that both local and out-of-town children will spend some time either on birding tours or at the other events going on during the weekend.  We’ve kept the price of ticketed events as low as we could to encourage families to attend.”

With fourteen species of owl and three species of hummingbirds in the Valley, as well as pelicans and the elusive Forster’s Tern, birders will surely find as many surprises in the field as they will during the scheduled workshops, presentations, tours and buffet dinner.

Eight bird-themed vendor tables will be set up on Friday, the last day of registration, May 12, from 11:00-4:00 pm.  These include Purple Rose Enterprise; Lark Coffee Roasters; Tilia Botanicals; Legend Logos; Creston Valley Mudders Group; Mellowood Studio and Art Gallery; Earthsong Framing Art & Glass Studio; and Karen Whitford Photography.

The Creston Valley Bird Fest runs May 12-14.  More information and registration can be found on their website www.crestonvalleybirds.ca