Birding festival expands schedule, focuses on education

Just like migrating birds, the Stikine River Birding Festival is coming back to Wrangell.

This year, instead of just one weekend, the festival is spreading its wings to three weekends in a row from April 22 to May 7 with a focus on education.

"Instead of having one intensive weekend, hoping to capitalize on visitors, I think we recognized it was never really attracting a huge amount of tourists," said Corree Delabrue, district interpreter for the U.S. Forest Service Wrangell office. She also coordinates the birding festival events that involve the Forest Service. "It's really more of a community festival."

The festival is sponsored by the borough in conjunction with the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau and the Forest Service.

Last year, the festival was limited to a few in-person events and several Zoom seminars. There are more in-person events scheduled this year, with fewer web-based events.

Birding enthusiast Bonnie Demerjian will run two in-person events: Birding 101 and Early Bird Walks. The first class will take place at 6:30 p.m. April 22 at the Nolan Center and will help people with identifying various species of birds found around the region. The bird walk will take place at 7 a.m. April 30 at Muskeg Meadows Golf Course.

"Muskeg Meadows is the best (place to view birds) because there's a variety of habitat there," Demerjian said. "I used to go birding there every day before moving (to Shoemaker Loop)."

She also recommended Pats Lake and Pats Creek as other ideal bird-watching locations, as there are "a lot of interesting water birds out there."

Demerjian got into birding more than 20 years ago. In that time, she's been able to tune in to the various tweets and chirps, warbles and whistles to identify around 100 birds by ear. She can also educate new birders on things such as breeding birds versus resident birds (breeding birds migrate to Wrangell specifically to breed, while resident birds live here all year) and terms like "feeder birds" that come in just for the food at a bird feeder.

Along with scavenger hunts, bird-banding exhibitions and crafting, there will also be jetboat tours up the Stikine to look for migrating birds, as many flock to the shores this time of year. But spotting visiting birds is never guaranteed, said Carol Rushmore, economic development director for the borough.

"We never know when the birds are going to show up. It's kind of a problem," Rushmore said. "When we started years ago, we tried to coincide with the eagles on the sand flats."

Part of the difficulty, she said, is that the various species of birds, such as sandhill cranes, snow geese and others, don't always show up at the same time.

Rushmore echoed Delabrue's thought that the festival is much more geared toward locals than visitors, trying to provide something for everyone.

"We try to involve the kids and have stuff for them (like story time at the library), then speakers for adults," Rushmore said.

Guest speakers scheduled for this year are Zak Pohlen, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Fernando Angulo, a Peruvian ornithologist and conservationist; and Ana Agreda, a biologist with 20 years of experience in ornithology and bird watching.

For a list of the festival's events and contests, visit wrangell.com/birdingfestival/birding-festival-schedule. Delabrue said the website is the best resource for up-to-date information as events can change depending on weather and COVID precautions.

"After winter in Southeast Alaska, we want to celebrate spring and have something to look forward to and celebrate that fact that we have this really cool resource right in our backyard," Delabrue said.